KUNKST    F.    OTTO 


CITY    EDITOR 

MORNING    SENTINEL 

SANTA  CRUZ,   CAL. 


THE    MAIN    POINTS 


OTHER  BOOKS  BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 


THE  CAP  AND  GOWN 

THE  STRANGE  WAYS  OF  GOD 

THE  SOCIAL  MESSAGE  OF  THE  MODERN  PULPIT 

FAITH  AND  HEALTH 

THE  YOUNG  MAN'S  AFFAIRS 

THE  MODERN  MAN'S  RELIGION 


THE    MAIN    POINTS 


A  STUDY  IN  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 


BY 

CHARLES  REYNOLDS  BROWN 


THE    PILGRIM    PRESS; 

BOSTON          NEW  YORK          CHICAGO 


Copyright, 
BY  LUTHER  H.  CART 


67 
17 

fig 
I?// 


THE    PILGRIM    PRESS 
BOSTON 


TO 

SAMUEL  T.  ALEXANDER 

IN    APPRECIATION    OF    HIS    PERSONAL    FRIENDSHIP 

AND    OF    HIS    GENEROUS    LOYALTY   IN 

ALL  THE   WORK    OF 

OUR   CHURCH 


PREFACE 

THIS  little  book  is  not  a  learned  treatise 
on  systematic  theology;  it  is  designed 
for  the  thoughtful  layman  rather  than  for 
the  technical  scholar.  There  are  books  in 
abundance  which  will  meet  the  need  of  the 
theologian  or  the  philosopher  as  this  one  does 
not  attempt  to  do.  n 

There  are  thousands  of  people  who  have 
lost  confidence  in  the  doctrinal  statements 
accepted  by  them  in  earlier  days  as  the  very 
words  of  eternal  life.  They  have  an  uneasy 
feeling  because  "the  traditional  phrases  of 
religious  speech  do  not  set  forth  with  un- 
strained naturalness  and  transparent  sin- 
cerity the  facts  of  their  religious  lives." 
Some  of  them  have  thrown  away  all  such 
statements  and  are  offering  their  devotions 
at  the  altar  of  an  "Unknown  God."  Others 
with  more  conservative  instincts  have  re- 
tained the  phrases  but  with  a  yearning  to 
have  them  restated  in  terms  of  actual  life. 
It  was  with  their  questioning  and  expect- 
ant attitude  in  mind  that  these  chapters 
were  written. 

vii 


viii  PREFACE 

The  lack  of  full  assent  to  certain  standards 
impels  many  earnest  people  to  count  them- 
selves outside  the  pale  of  evangelical  Chris- 
tianity. They  have  no  quarrel  with  the 
ethics  of  Christianity,  but  certain  doctrinal 
statements  they  cannot  accept.  They  do 
not  attach  themselves  to  the  so-called  "lib- 
eral churches,"  which  are  losing  rather  than 
gaining  in  numbers.  They  desire  some- 
thing richer  and  warmer  than  the  presenta- 
tion made  by  "societies  for  ethical  culture." 
They  look  to  the  great  branches  of  the 
Church  of  Christ  to  speak  to  them  in  the 
tongue  and  in  the  mood  wherein  they  live, 
a  sure  word  of  life. 

If  the  evangelical  churches  can  recognize 
this  multitude  standing  beyond  the  group 
of  disciples  already  enrolled,  meet  them, 
interest  them,  and  lead  them  to  the  point 
where  they  shall  see  the  religion  of  Jesus 
Christ  in  a  more  satisfying  way,  they  will 
render  a  splendid  service.  If  they  can 
restate  in  the  language  of  present  life, 
clearly,  reasonably,  and  winsomely,  those 
great  truths  which  the  plain  people  regard 
as  the  staples  of  religious  belief,  they  may 
gather  in  a  host  of  those  who  are  waiting 
for  a  gospel  at  once  credible  and  vital. 

It  may  seem  presumptuous  to  attempt  the 


PREFACE  ix 

consideration  of  ten  capital  themes  in  theol- 
ogy within  the  limits  of  a  single  small  vol- 
ume. But  these  pages  were  written  for 
busy  people.  Laymen  have  more  to  do  and 
less  time  to  read  big  books  than  had  their 
grandfathers.  Not  many  of  them  find  oppor- 
tunity to  read  even  the  standard  theological 
books  of  the  more  popular  type.  The  pas- 
tors are  familiar  with  whole  libraries  of 
fresh  and  stimulating  books  which,  owing  to 
the  stress  of  other  matters  on  their  atten- 
tion, never  come  into  the  hands  of  our  lay- 
men. There  is  good  grain  being  harvested 
every  month  from  the  work  done  in  theo- 
logical reconstruction  in  the  pages  of  the 
reviews.  If  we  can  take  some  of  the  results 
of  our  wider  reading  and  bring  it  in  every- 
day language  to  the  attention  of  the  busy 
people,  we  shall  render  them  a  useful  service. 
In  such  brief  compass  there  must  of  neces- 
sity be  a  lack  of  that  thorough  and  elabo- 
rate handling  of  august  themes  which  one 
finds  in  truly  theological  books.  But  even 
though  the  twenty-dollar  gold  pieces  are 
here  converted  into  small  change,  they  may 
possibly  attain  a  further  usefulness  in  that 
they  can  be  taken  and  used  by  those  who 
secure  their  doctrinal  reading  in  small  in- 
voices. 


x  PREFACE 

I  have  here  and  there  quoted  freely  from 
the  writings  of  certain  eminent  religious 
teachers.  It  seemed  right  to  give  to  the 
expression  of  my  own  thought  on  these 
fundamental  questions  the  confirmation, 
the  enrichment,  and  the  extension  afforded 
by  the  words  of  men  who  have  made  us 
all  debtors  to  their  thorough  and  devout 
scholarship. 

In  a  time  of  transition  and  restatement 
like  the  present,  no  teacher  of  religion  can 
speak  his  mind  frankly  and  briefly,  leaving 
out  those  explanations  and  qualifications 
which  come  in  to  modify  and  round  out, 
and  expect  to  carry  with  him  the  assent  of 
the  entire  company.  But  the  richer  under- 
standing of  the  great  truths  will  not  come 
by  halting  silence  or  timid  distrust  of  fellow 
students  with  whom  we  may  not  quite  keep 
step  —  it  will  come  rather  as  each  Chris- 
tian man,  striving  to  do  the  will  of  God  and 
to  know  the  doctrine,  gives  out  openly  and 
honestly  the  best  he  has. 

CHARLES  REYNOLDS  BROWN 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  **C* 

I.  THE  DIVINITY  OF  JESUS  CHRIST    .  i 

II.  THE  ATONEMENT 28 

III.  THE  WORK  OF  THE  HOLY  SPIRIT    .  54 

IV.  THE  AUTHORITY  OF  THE  BIBLE      .  70 
V.  THE  UTILITY  OF  PRAYER      .      .     .  100 

VI.  THE  QUESTION  OF  CONVERSION      .  125 

VII.  SALVATION  BY  FAITH 140 

VIII.  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH       .      .     .  151 

IX.  THE  HOPE  OF  IMMORTALITY      .      .  175 

X.  THE  FINAL  JUDGMENT     ....  199 

XI.  THE  USE  OF  A  CREED  226 


THE    MAIN    POINTS 


THE    MAIN    POINTS 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  DIVINITY  OF  JESUS   CHRIST 

THE  religious  man  everywhere  believes 
in  God.  In  our  evangelical  faith  the 
Being  whom  we  worship,  trust,  and  serve 
is  "the  God  and  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ."  It  is  "God  in  Christ"  with  whom 
we  sustain  those  relations  which  furnish 
the  content  of  religious  experience.  The 
doctrine  of  the  person  of  Christ  is,  there- 
fore, at  once  fundamental  and  distinctive. 

The  question  as  to  the  divinity  of  Christ 
is  not  a  mere  question  of  historical  appraise- 
ment to  determine  the  rank  of  one  who 
died  long  ago.  It  is  a  question  of  present 
and  significant  fact.  The  inquiry  of  Canon 
Liddon  must  confront  us  all:  "Where  is 
Jesus  Christ  now?  And  what  is  he?"  We 
know  with  a  satisfying  measure  of  accuracy 
what  he  was  when  he  walked  in  Galilee, 
helping  the  sick,  the  ignorant,  and  the  sin- 
ful, but  what  can  he  do  now?  "Does  he 
I 


2  THE  MAIN  POINTS 

reign  only  by  virtue  of  a  mighty  tradition 
of  human  thought  and  feeling  in  his  favor 
which  creates  and  supports  his  imaginary 
throne?  Is  he  at  this  moment  a  really  liv- 
ing being?  And  if  living,  is  he  a  human 
ghost  flitting  we  know  not  where  in  the 
unseen  world,  and  himself  awaiting  an  award 
at  the  hands  of  the  Everlasting?  Is  he 
present  personally  as  a  living  power  in  this, 
our  world?  Has  he  any  certain  relations 
to  you?  Does  he  think  of  you,  care  for 
you,  act  upon  you?  Can  you  approach  him 
now,  cling  to  him,  receive  from  him  mighty 
aid,  not  as  an  act  of  imagination,  but  as  a 
substantial  fact?"  Has  he,  in  a  word,  cos- 
mic and  eternal  relations?  Is  there  avail- 
able for  human  need  today  that  powerful, 
loving  help  manifested  of  old  to  men  in 
Galilee?  Surely  no  inquiry  could  be  more 
pertinent  or  fruitful. 

This  question  was  not  originally  pro- 
pounded by  speculative  schoolmen  or  by 
abstract  theologians.  The  same  Lord  who 
taught  men  to  do  unto  others  as  they  would 
that  others  should  do  unto  them  enjoined 
his  followers  to  define  their  estimate  of  him. 
"Whom  do  men  say  that  I,  the  Son  of  man, 
am?"  "Whom  say  ye  that  I  am?"  He 
graciously  blessed  them  when  they  returned 


DIVINITY  OF  CHRIST        3 

an  answer  he  could  approve.  The  answer 
given  by  the  disciples  at  Caesarea  Philippi 
thus  acceptable  to  Jesus  was:  "Thou  art 
the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living  God.*'  It 
was  an  estimate  of  the  person  of  Christ 
which  seemed  to  lift  him  in  their  minds 
quite  out  of  the  purely  human  categories 
where  John  the  Baptist,  Elijah,  Jeremiah, 
and  the  other  great  prophets  stood. 

The  question  is  raised  whether  those  words, 
uttered  by  Peter,  do  assert  the  divinity  of 
Christ  —  whether  indeed  they  affirm  any- 
thing more  than  a  strong  conviction  as  to 
his  Messiahship  without  entering  into  the 
more  intricate  problem  as  to  his  person. 
It  may  be  granted  that  did  this  confession 
of  Peter  stand  unsupported  by  other  sim- 
ilar and  stronger  statements  made  by  the 
contemporaries  of  Jesus  in  their  effort  to 
account  for  him,  the  doctrine  of  his  essen- 
tial divinity  might  never  have  obtained  the 
place  it  holds  in  Christian  thought.  But 
when  we  trace  the  persistent  attempt  of 
his  immediate  followers,  themselves  mem- 
bers of  that  Hebrew  race  steeped  for  cen- 
turies in  the  majestic  truth  of  the  unity  of 
God,  to  relate  his  person  to  Infinite  Being 
in  a  manner  altogether  unique, —  an  attempt 
never  undertaken  on  behalf  of  Paul  or  John 


4  THE  MAIN  POINTS 

or  any  other  great  religious  leader  of  that 
century;  and  when  we  find  that  this  attempt 
extends  through  the  Synoptic  Gospels,  the 
fourth  Gospel,  the  Acts,  and  the  Epistles, 
we  can  understand  why  all  the  main  branches 
of  the  Christian  Church,  following  the  lead 
of  those  first  apostles,  have  made  belief  in 
the  divinity  of  Christ  an  essential  part  of 
their  creed. 

The  various  grounds  on  which  these  great 
bodies  of  Christian  believers  rest  this  con- 
viction are  many,  too  many  for  anything 
like  adequate  statement  within  the  limits 
of  a  single  chapter.  The  main  lines  of  argu- 
ment which  are  to  many  minds  most  satis- 
fying, may,  however,  be  briefly  indicated. 

We  find  spread  upon  the  pages  of  the  New 
Testament  the  outlines  of  a  portrait  of  the 
Christ  as  he  stood  before  his  contemporaries. 
The  authors  of  these  New  Testament  books 
were  Hebrews,  uncompromising  monotheists 
to  whom  the  very  thought  of  ascribing  divine 
honors  to  a  human  being  was  an  offense  and 
a  horror.  Yet  when  they  came  to  know 
Jesus  Christ,  we  find  them  bracketing  the 
name  of  Christ  with  that  of  God  the  Father, 
and  according  to  him  the  honors  and  attri- 
butes which  in  Hebrew  thought  had  been 
strictly  reserved  for  God  alone. 


DIVINITY  OF  CHRIST       5 

The  formula  for  baptism;  the  ascription 
to  Jesus  of  the  right  to  forgive  sins  and  of 
authority  to  judge  the  whole  earth  in  the 
great  assize;  the  statement  .made  by  Christ 
that  no  one  knew  the  Father  perfectly  save 
himself  and  those  to  whom  he  would  reveal 
Him;  the  confident  assertion,  "Ye  shall 
see  the  Son  of  man  sitting  on  the  right  hand 
of  power,  and  coming  in  the  clouds  of 
heaven,"  taken  with  the  reception  given  this 
assertion  by  the  Pharisees,  who  regarded  it 
as  blasphemy  in  that  he  had  assumed  divine 
prerogatives  —  all  this  from  the  Synoptic 
Gospels  serves  to  indicate  some  of  the  main 
features  in  the  portrait  of  Jesus  as  "eye- 
witnesses of  his  majesty"  have  painted  it. 

The  form  of  the  familiar  apostolic  bene- 
diction found  at  the  close  of  Paul's  letter 
to  the  Corinthians  and  his  repeated  ascrip- 
tion to  Jesus  Christ  of  divine  honors  in  the 
four  unquestioned  epistles;  the  salutations 
at  the  head  of  other  epistles  which  bear  the 
names  of  Paul  and  Peter,  of  James  and  Jude; 
the  place  assigned  to  Christ  in  the  work  of 
redemption  as  proclaimed  in  the  sermons 
reported  in  the  Book  of  Acts  —  all  these,  as 
well  as  the  familiar  estimates  upon  Christ 
in  the  fourth  Gospel,  serve  to  indicate  clearly 
the  total  impression  made  upon  the  minds 


THE  MAIN  POINTS 


of  those  who  stood  nearest  and  knew  him 
best.  The  citation  of  "proof  texts"  has 
lost  much  of  its  former  hold  upon  serious- 
minded  Christians,  but  the  whole  composite 
photograph  of  Jesus  as  it  stands  upon  the 
pages  of  the  New  Testament  is  such  as  to 
make  clear  the  fact  that  his  immediate  fol- 
lowers did  not  hesitate  to  stand  before  him 
in  reverent  worship.  They  voiced  feeling 
and  conviction  in  those  words  which  invest 
him  with  attributes  divine. 

The  testimony  of  Jesus  concerning  him- 
self would  seem  to  be  what  lawyers  term 
"the  best  evidence."  Jesus  gave  every  indi- 
cation of  being  sincere  and  honest.  He  was 
not  boastful  or  extravagant  in  his  habit  of 
speech.  He  was  sane  and  clear-eyed  in 
his  moral  judgments,  so  much  so  that  the 
suggestion  of  his  being  a  self-deceived  enthu- 
siast wins  no  serious  assent  from  thoughtful 
students  of  the  record.  His  own  Hebrew 
nature  and  training  would  have  caused  him 
to  shrink  from  the  blasphemy  involved  in 
applying  to  himself  divine  titles,  in  accepting 
divine  worship,  in  assuming  divine  preroga- 
tives, had  he  been  but  one  of  us,  stand- 
ing in  the  presence  of  the  Omnipotent  to 
render  an  account  for  the  utterance  of  every 
idle  word.  The  testimony,  therefore,  which 


DIVINITY  OF  CHRIST       7 

Jesus  gave  of  himself  would  naturally  be  of 
the  highest  significance. 

He  claimed  to  be  sinless.  Men  who  under- 
take to  instruct  their  fellow  men  in  right- 
eousness instinctively  accompany  their  moral 
appeals  with  some  reference  to  their  own 
sense  of  unworthiness.  People  turn  from 
any  pulpit  in  which  they  do  not  hear  ever 
and  anon  the  tones  of  personal  confession. 
They  feel  that  if  the  man  is  not  sufficiently 
honest  to  recognize  the  need  of  moral  bet- 
terment in  himself  as  he  preaches  of  sub- 
lime duties,  he  is  not  fit  to  be  their  moral 
leader.  The  greatest  of  the  apostles,  in 
one  of  the  undisputed  epistles,  cries:  "The 
good  that  I  would,  I  do  not;  the  evil  that 
I  would  not,  that  I  do.  0,  wretched  man 
that  I  am,  who  shall  deliver  me!"  The 
saintly  John  writes,  "If  we  say  that  we  have 
no  sin,  we  deceive  ourselves,  and  the  truth 
is  not  in  us."  James  voices  his  own  habit 
where  he  says,  "Confess  your  faults  one  to 
another,  and  pray  one  for  another,  that  ye 
may  be  healed."  Peter's  humble  word  of 
confession  is,  "Depart  from  me;  for  I  am  a 
sinful  man,  O  Lord."  The  moral  leaders 
of  the  world  uniformly  confess  their  sense 
of  guilt  and  their  consequent  need  of  for- 
giveness. 


8  THE  MAIN  POINTS 

But  with  Jesus  there  is  no  record  of  any 
such  acknowledgment  of  moral  fault.  He 
showed  no  consciousness  of  wrong-doing. 
No  prayer  for  personal  forgiveness  was  found 
upon  his  lips.  He  taught  his  followers  to 
pray,  "Forgive  us  our  sins,"  but  he  him- 
self never  looked  heavenward  to  say,  "For- 
give me  my  sin."  He  admitted  none.  He 
said  boldly,  "I  do  always  those  things  that 
please  Him."  He  challenged  his  enemies 
to  convict  him  of  sin,  if  they  could.  We 
have  no  record  that  the  challenge  was  ever 
met.  This  claim  of  moral  perfection  either 
affirms  something  higher  than  the  moral 
limitations  of  humanity  as  we  know  it,  or 
it  disfigures  the  sincerity  of  a  perfect  man. 

The  assertion  of  his  personal  relation  to 
the  work  of  human  redemption  throws  light 
upon  his  self-estimate.  It  is  common  for 
right-minded  leaders  to  point  away  from 
themselves  to  some  higher  source  of  help 
when  they  would  direct  their  fellows  in  the 
way  of  eternal  life.  Jesus  came  into  the 
world  to  "show  us  the  Father,"  but  he  also 
invited  direct  allegiance  to  himself  in  a  way 
that  would  have  seemed  absurd  had  he  been 
but  a  man  of  unusual  intelligence  and  ex- 
traordinary purity  of  life.  Hear  his  words, 
"If  any  man  thirst,  let  him  come  unto  me 


DIVINITY  OF  CHRIST       9 

and  drink."  "Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that 
labor  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give 
you  rest."  "No  man  cometh  unto  the  Father, 
but  by  me."  "The  Son  of  man  hath  power 
on  earth  to  forgive  sins."  He  announced 
himself  as  the  universal  Judge  of  mankind. 
He  said  the  Son  of  man  would  come  and  sit 
upon  the  throne  of  his  glory  and  gather  all 
nations  before  him!  In  the  Synoptics  as 
well  as  in  the  fourth  Gospel  we  find  recorded 
this  extraordinary  self-assertion.  How  im- 
possible to  adjust  such  claims  with  a  strictly 
humanitarian  theory  of  his  person!  We 
shrink  from  placing  them  on  lips  not  truly 
divine. 

Modern  scholarship  does  not  accord  to 
the  reported  utterances  of  Jesus  found  in 
the  fourth  Gospel  the  same  title  to  accuracy 
as  would  be  accorded  to  the  utterances 
recorded  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels.  It  is 
openly  asserted  that  the  fourth  Gospel  is 
a  philosophical  interpretation  rather  than 
a  painstaking  historical  document.  "The 
author  of  the  fourth  Gospel  has  preserved 
the  image  of  his  Master,  but  the  picture  is 
framed  in  by  his  own  meditations  and 
reflections." 

Yet  if  this  claim  be  granted  in  full,  the 
truth  stands  that  this  narrative  of  the  life 


io         THE  MAIN  POINTS 

and  teachings  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  came  into 
existence  at  an  early  period  in  the  develop- 
ment of  Christianity;  that  no  such  attempt 
was  made  to  secure  standing  outside  the 
human  categories  for  any  other  religious 
leader  of  the  day;  that  this  portrait  of  Jesus, 
retouched  though  it  may  have  been  by  the 
hands  of  second-century  scholarship,  met  with 
ready  and  confident  acceptance  at  the  hands 
of  men  standing  many  centuries  nearer  the 
original  tradition  than  do  we,  —  men  who 
had  been  nourished  on  the  plain  statements  of 
the  first  three  Gospels  and  upon  the  body 
of  tradition  passed  on  from  "eyewitnesses 
of  his  majesty."  -  The  very  existence  of  such 
a  document,  even  for  those  who  withhold 
from  it  the  tribute  of  actual  historicity,  must 
have  great  weight  as  a  witness  to  the  con- 
viction touching  the  person  of  Christ,  which 
somehow  had  been  produced  among  a  people 
steeped  in  monotheism,  and  produced  within 
an  amazingly  short  time  after  his  death. 
It  seems  to  be  entirely  legitimate,  there- 
fore, to  quote  some  of  these  sayings  as 
throwing  light  upon  the  impression  he  made 
upon  the  thought  of  his  own  day. 

The  confident  use  of  the  capital  "I,"  of 
which  men  grow  chary  in  proportion  to  their 
goodness  and  wisdom,  attributed  to  Jesus 


DIVINITY  OF  CHRIST     11 

in  the  fourth  Gospel,  is  startling.  "I  am 
the  way,  the  truth,  and  the  life."  "I  am 
the  bread  of  life:  ...  he  that  eateth  of 
this  bread  shall  live  for  ever."  "I  am  the 
light  of  the  world:  he  that  followeth  me 
shall  not  walk  in  darkness."  "I  am  the  true 
vine"  —  the  life  tree  of  regenerate  human- 
ity—  "without  me  ye  can  do  nothing." 
"I  am  the  resurrection,  and  the  life:  .  .  . 
whosoever  liveth  and  believeth  in  me  shall 
never  die."  "I  am  the  door:  by  me,  if  any 
man  enter  in,  he  shall  be  saved." 

What  awful  egotism  thus  to  exalt  himself 
unless  he  transcended  our  humanity!  Try 
to  put  such  words  on  the  lips  of  any  other 
great  religious  leader,  Paul,  Luther,  Francis 
of  Assisi,  John  Wesley,  Jonathan  Edwards, 
Henry  Ward  Beecher  —  they  will  not  stay! 
The  mute  lips  refuse  such  claims  because 
they  know  their  human  limitations.  None 
of  these  would  ever  say,  "Come  unto  me 
.  .  .  and  I  will  give  you  rest,"  or,  "With- 
out me  ye  can  do  nothing."  None  would 
think  of  saying,  "No  man  cometh  unto  the 
Father,  but  by  me."  The  old  dilemma 
stands:  either  he  was  divine  or,  according  to 
these  reported  utterances  revealing  his  self- 
appraisement,  he  was  not  a  sane,  sincere, 
good  man. 


12         THE  MAIN  POINTS 

It  is  written,  also,  that  Jesus  associated 
himself,  in  a  manner  entirely  unique,  with 
God  the  Father.  He  told  men  in  the  same 
breath  to  trust  God  and  trust  him.  "Ye 
believe  in  God,  believe  also  in  me."  He 
commanded  them  to  pray  in  his  name. 
"If  ye  ask  anything  in  my  name,  I  will 
do  it."  He  ranked  the  honors  paid  to  him 
on  a  level  with  honors  paid  to  God.  "All 
men  should  honor  the  Son,  even  as  they 
honor  the  Father."  He  declared  himself 
to  be  the  full,  unimpaired  revelation  of  the 
invisible  God.  "He  that  hath  seen  me  hath 
seen  the  Father."  He  associated  himself 
with  God  in  the  work  of  salvation.  "If  a 
man  love  me,  he  will  keep  my  words :  and  my 
Father  will  love  him,  and  we  will  come  unto 
him,  and  make  our  abode  with  him."  Who 
is  this  that  thus  couples  his  name  with  that 
of  the  Father  and  says,  "We"? 

His  final  commission  was,  "All  power  is 
given  unto  me  in  heaven  and  on  earth.  Go 
ye  therefore  into  all  the  world  and  baptize 
men  into  the  name  of  God  and  into  my  name 
and  into  the  name  of  the  Holy  Ghost."  We 
have  heard  extravagant  boasts  made  by 
men  as  to  the  extent  of  their  earthly  power, 
but  here  is  One  claiming  all  power  in  heaven 
and  on  earth  and  sending  his  followers  to 


DIVINITY  OF  CHRIST     13 

baptize  believers  with  a  formula  where  the 
divine  name  and  his  own  name  stand  to- 
gether and  equal.  The  sum  of  all  this  tes- 
timony indicates  that  Jesus  lived  and  taught 
in  the  faith  that  he  was  the  Son  of  God  in 
a  sense  which  entirely  transcends  the  filial 
relation  sustained  by  believing  men  to  the 
heavenly  Father. 

But  in  addition  to  the  portrait  of  Christ 
as  it  stands  upon  the  pages  of  the  New 
Testament,  embodying  the  estimate  of  eye- 
witnesses of  his  majesty,  and  the  testi- 
mony of  Jesus  concerning  himself,  there  is 
the  history  of  the  Christian  Church  for 
nineteen  hundred  years.  The  lower  concep- 
tion of  Jesus  as  an  extraordinary  man  or  as 
the  first  of  created  beings,  but  not  divine, 
has  had  its  full  chance  to  be  heard  in  all 
the  centuries  since  the  first.  Gnostic  and 
Arian,  Socinian  and  Unitarian  have  offered 
this  lower  view  to  those  who  were  puzzled 
or  repelled  by  the  higher  claim.  The  offer 
has  been  made  by  men  winsome  in  charac- 
ter and  possessed  of  unusual  power  in  literary 
statement. 

And  what  has  been  the  result?  We  are 
not  moving  here  in  any  realm  of  metaphys- 
ical speculation.  We  are  not  even  exam- 
ining historical  sources  so  remote  as  those 


i4         THE  MAIN   POINTS 

contained  in  the  pages  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment. We  are  scrutinizing  facts  of  history 
which  no  one  thinks  of  calling  in  question. 
The  adherents  of  the  lower  view  are  but 
a  small  company.  They  have  failed  to 
command  any  considerable  following  or 
to  develop  the  spiritual  vigor  belonging 
to  those  great  branches  of  the  Christian 
Church  which  hold  the  higher  view.  They 
have  failed  to  give  that  evidence  of  an  all- 
inclusive,  self-sacrificing  love  seen  in  those 
missionary  movements  which  clasp  the  whole 
round  world  in  the  arms  of  Christian  inter- 
est. This  vaster  moral  enterprise  has  been 
left  altogether  to  those  bodies  of  Christians 
who  hold  that  Christ  is  divine. 

The  contrast  between  the  varying  spirit- 
ual results  of  proclaiming  the  higher  and  the 
lower  views  of  Christ's  person  was  thus 
recently  voiced  by  a  prominent  Unitarian: 
"Two  curious  spectacles  the  world  sees  to- 
day: an  orthodoxy  holding  fast  to  discred- 
ited dogmas  and  profoundly  in  earnest;  a 
liberalism  intellectually  secure,  but  without 
depth  of  moral  conviction  and  half  indif- 
ferent to  the  claims  of  personal  religion! 
The  world  approves  our  position  and  for- 
sakes our  altars.  The  intelligence  of  the 
age  goes  the  way  of  liberal  thought;  the 


DIVINITY  OF  CHRIST      15 

devotion  of  the  age  goes  the  way  of  ortho- 
dox life." 

It  is  a  severe  arraignment  of  the  con- 
fessed weakness  of  the  liberal  position  in 
producing  desired  spiritual  results.  This 
frank  admission  of  failure  raises  the  ques- 
tion as  to  whether  "dogmas,"  which  work 
so  much  better  in  the  production  of  moral 
earnestness  and  devotion  than  do  the  denials 
of  them,  are  altogether  "discredited."  It 
raises  the  question  as  to  whether  the  more 
serious  and  aspiring  part  of  the  world  does 
"approve"  the  liberal  position,  since  in 
the  expression  of  its  deeper  life  it  holds 
mainly  the  more  conservative  faith. 

Why  is  it  that  this  lower  view  of  Christ's 
person  has  thus  shown  itself  deficient  in 
furnishing  motive  power?  Why  has  his- 
tory put  the  crown  of  the  larger  spiritual 
success  upon  the  head  of  the  higher  view? 
"Do  men  gather  grapes  of  thorns,  or  figs 
of  thistles?"  The  verdict  of  history  upon 
those  who  content  themselves  with  the 
claim  that  Christ  was  a  matchless  teacher, 
a  lovely  example,  a  great  moral  hero,  and 
its  altogether  different  verdict  upon  those 
who  find  in  him  a  divine  redeemer,  is  highly 
instructive. 

The  rule  of  the  pragmatist  which  has  value, 


16         THE  MAIN  POINTS 

even  though  it  be  not  the  sole  or  the  supreme 
test  of  truth,  may  well  teach  us  something 
on  this  point.  The  lower  view  of  Christ's 
person,  though  tried  for  centuries  with  a 
noble  persistence  on  the  part  of  men  at 
once  gifted  and  earnest,  has  not  "worked." 
Its  spiritual  fruitage  on  the  wide  fields  of 
Christian  effort,  where  the  attempt  has  been 
made  to  change  the  lives  of  moral  failures 
and  to  make  moral  success  more  broadly 
and  generously  useful  in  bringing  in  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven,  will  not  stand  compari- 
son with  the  spiritual  fruitage  of  the  higher 
view. 

The  form,  the  theory,  the  pattern  of  god- 
liness is  not  the  most  pressing  need  of  the 
modern  world.  The  imperative  need  is 
for  that  divine  something  which  will  lift  off 
the  sense  of  guilt,  renew  the  springs  of  ac- 
tion, invigorate  the  lame  will,  furnish  an 
unfailing  source  of  motive  and  stimulus. 
The  moral  demand  is  for  "the  power  of 
godliness,"  which  human  experience  has 
discovered  in  greatest  measure,  thus  far, 
by  fixing  its  faith  upon  Jesus  Christ  as  Son 
of  God  and  Saviour  of  the  world. 

Unless  we  are  ready  to  part  company 
with  our  confidence  in  the  moral  integrity 
of  the  universe,  and  with  our  faith  in  the 


DIVINITY  OF  CHRIST      17 

validity  of  history  as  a  moral  revelation  in 
itself,  it  seems  incredible  that,  for  sixty 
generations  of  believing  and  aspiring  men, 
moral  victory  has  been  the  reward  of  a 
delusion,  and  comparative  failure,  wherever 
the  higher  and  the  lower  conceptions  of  the 
person  of  Christ  have  been  brought  into 
competition,  the  disappointing  fate  of  the 
truth.  To  make  such  a  claim  would  be  to 
assert  that  for  some  inexplicable  reason  the 
things  that  are  not  persist  in  being  mightier 
that  the  things  that  are. 

The  feeling  of  essential  kinship  between 
the  human  and  the  divine,  along  with  the 
sense  of  profound  difference,  has  for  some 
reason  only  taken  deep  hold  upon  the  moral 
lives  of  whole  communities  of  men  where 
that  great  truth  has  been  proclaimed  in  the 
terms  of  the  incarnation.  "The  supreme 
divinity  of  Jesus  Christ  is  the  sovereign 
expression  in  human  history  of  the  great 
law  of  difference  in  identity,  that  runs 
through  the  entire  universe  and  that  has  its 
home  in  the  heart  of  the  Godhead."  l  The 
splendid  confidence  that  man  is  the  child 
of  the  Infinite,  in  nature,  in  capacity  for 
growth,  in  an  endless  destiny,  seems  to  fade 
out  of  the  ordinary  consciousness  unless  it 

1  George  A.  Gordon,  "The  Christ  of  To-day,"  page  na. 


i8         THE  MAIN  POINTS 

is  perpetually  sustained  by  a  faith  that  "the 
Prototype  of  humanity,  lying  eternally  in 
the  Godhead,  has  appeared  in  an  historic 
personality  to  vindicate  the  daring  thought." 
And  this  "Eternal  Pattern"  of  our  human 
relations  and  our  human  capacity  has  been 
identified  in  the  life  of  the  Church  universal 
with  "Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  Son  of  man  of 
the  Gospels,  the  Mediator  and  Redeemer 
of  the  Epistles,  and  the  Lord  Christ  of  the 
historic  creeds!" 

It  is  confidently  asserted  by  those  who 
would  discard  all  manner  of  external  author- 
ity and  refuse  to  accept  even  an  historical 
norm,  that  we  have  advanced  beyond  the 
necessity  for  using  the  historical  Jesus  in 
the  production  of  religious  experience.  They 
insist  that  "the  idea  of  the  Christ"  will 
amply  suffice  for  all  our  spiritual  need. 

But  how  did  the  splendid  idealism  of  the 
Christian  gospel  get  into  the  world  ?  Whence 
came  "the  idea  of  the  Christ"?  How  has 
it  become  the  leading  element  in  the  spirit- 
ual possessions  of  the  race?  We  have  in 
our  American  life  "the  spirit  of  Washing- 
ton" and  "the  spirit  of  Lincoln."  The 
phrases  indicate  certain  mighty  traditions 
which  exert  a  commanding  influence  in  the 
development  of  patriotism.  But  we  have 


DIVINITY  OF  CHRIST      19 

the  spirit  of  those  noted  statesmen  at  work 
in  our  civic  life  as  a  result  of  the  fact  that 
the  great  ideas  thus  suggested  actually 
became  incarnate  in  the  persons  of  Washing- 
ton and  of  Lincoln.  And  the  Eternal  Word, 
the  everlasting  gospel  of  the  living  God, 
became  effective  when  "the  word  became 
flesh  and  dwelt  among  us,  full  of  grace  and 
truth."  We  need  both  the  historical  and 
the  idealistic  treatment  of  the  Christian 
faith  if  it  is  to  furnish  us  a  sure  word  of 
eternal  life. 

Napoleon  Bonaparte  was  not  a  theologian, 
but  his  wide  experience  made  him  a  judge 
of  men.  He  could  estimate  forces  which 
would  work  lasting  results.  Near  the  close 
of  his  life  at  St.  Helena  we  are  told  that  he 
was  reviewing  the  events  of  his  own  career 
and  commenting  upon  the  great  men  of 
history.  "Can  you  tell  me  who  Jesus 
Christ  was?"  he  said  one  day.  No  answer 
was  given,  and  he  continued,  "Well,  then, 
I  will  tell  you.  Alexander,  Csesar,  Charle- 
magne, and  I  myself  have  founded  great 
empires!  But  upon  what  did  these  crea- 
tions of  our  genius  depend?  Upon  force. 
Jesus  alone  founded  his  empire  upon  love, 
and  to  this  very  day  millions  would  die  for 
him.  I  think  I  understand  something  of 


20         THE  MAIN  POINTS 

human  nature,  and  I  tell  you  that  all  these 
were  men  and  I  am  a  man;  none  else  is  like 
him;  Jesus  is  more  than  man.  I  have 
inspired  multitudes  with  such  enthusiastic 
devotion  that  they  would  have  died  for  me, 
but  to  do  this  it  was  necessary  that  I  should 
be  visibly  present  with  the  electric  influ- 
ence of  my  looks,  of  my  words,  of  my  voice. 
Christ  alone  has  succeeded  in  so  raising 
the  mind  of  man  toward  the  Unseen,  that 
it  becomes  insensible  to  the  barriers  of 
time  and  space.  This  it  is  that  proves 
to  me  convincingly  the  divinity  of  Jesus 
Christ." 

The  claim  that  the  Man  of  Nazareth, 
born  of  a  woman,  tempted  in  all  points  like 
as  we  are,  schooled  in  obedience  by  the 
things  that  he  suffered,  crucified,  dead,  and 
buried  in  the  days  of  Pontius  Pilate,  was  the 
divine  Son  of  God,  raises  intellectual  diffi- 
culties. The  lower  conception  seems  easier 
to  many  minds.  Some  people,  without  ade- 
quate study  of  the  grounds  of  Christian 
certainty,  hastily  accept  it  as  a  relief  from 
intellectual  confusion.  Our  intellects  are 
not  built  on  a  scale  to  grasp  readily  and 
thoroughly  "the  mystery  of  godliness "  before 
which  the  great  religious  leaders  have  stood 
in  reverent  awe,  believing  that  — 


DIVINITY  OF   CHRIST      21 

"God  was  manifest  in  the  flesh, 
Justified  in  the  Spirit, 
Seen  of  Angels; 
Preached  unto  the  Gentiles, 
Believed  on  in  the  world, 
Received  up  into  glory." 

The  mode  of  God's  unmanifested  exist- 
ence is  too  high  for  us  —  we  cannot  attain 
unto  it.  And  the  brave  attempt  to  express 
"the  manifold  helpfulness  with  which  God 
has  offered  himself  to  us,"  as  we  do  in  our 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  involves  us  in  fur- 
ther philosophical  difficulties. 

But  we  are  already  bearing  the  burden  of 
many  unexplained  mysteries  in  this  life  of 
ours.  How  states  of  mind  register  them- 
selves upon  the  body  in  terms  of  health  or 
of  disease;  how  the  phenomena  of  hypno- 
tism, suggestion,  and  other  strange  facts 
recorded  by  societies  for  psychical  research 
are  produced;  how  the  energy  of  gravita- 
tion passes  from  world  to  world  without  the 
aid  of  even  such  a  medium  as  the  envelop- 
ing atmosphere  of  our  planet;  how  the  wire- 
less message  leaves  the  source  of  power  and 
goes  forth  bodiless,  moving  swiftly  upon  its 
errand  until  it  reports  and  registers  itself 
at  its  appointed  destination;  how  a  single 
atom  of  radium  may  contain  energy  suffi- 


22         THE  MAIN  POINTS 

cient  to  keep  a  clock  ticking  for  a  hundred 
thousand  years;  how  a  thousand  forms  of 
phenomena  are  related  to  Ultimate  Reality, 
our  minds  are  utterly  unable  to  determine. 

Therefore  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the  moral 
honesty  and  intellectual  sanity  of  Jesus  of 
Nazareth  seem  to  be  bound  up  with  the 
acceptance  or  rejection  of  the  higher  claim 
as  to  his  person;  and  in  view  of  the  further 
fact  that  the  fruitage  of  moral  energy  and 
spiritual  passion  has  been  a  hundredfold 
richer  on  those  fields  of  human  life  where  the 
higher  claim  has  been  received  than  upon 
those  where  it  was  displaced  by  a  lower 
estimate  of  him,  "it  seems  easier  for  a  good 
man  to  believe  that  in  a  world  where  we 
are  encompassed  by  mysteries,  where  man's 
own  being  itself  is  a  consummate  mystery, 
the  Moral  Author  of  the  wonders  around  us 
should  for  great  moral  purposes  have  taken 
to  himself  a  created  form,  than  that  the  one 
human  life  which  realizes  the  idea  of  human- 
ity, the  one  Man  who  is  at  once  perfect 
strength  and  perfect  tenderness,  the  one 
Pattern  of  our  race  in  whom  its  virtues  are 
combined  and  its  vices  eliminated  should 
have  been  guilty,  when  speaking  of  him- 
self, of  an  arrogance,  of  a  self-seeking,  and 
of  an  insincerity,  which,  if  admitted,  must 


DIVINITY   OF   CHRIST       23 

justly  degrade  him  far  below  the  moral 
level  of  millions  among  his  unhonored  wor- 
shipers." 

In  speaking  of  all  these  doctrines,  I  wish 
to  ask  what  bearing  they  have  on  the  needs 
of  common  life?  Religious  beliefs  are  means 
to  an  end,  and  the  end  is  right  conduct. 
"The  natural  terminus  of  all  experiences, 
bodily  and  mental,  is  action."  Our  time 
would  be  wasted  did  we  study  these  ques- 
tions only  to  decide  that  our  positions  were 
sound  and  right,  and  then  leave  the  con- 
sideration of  them  with  no  additional  help 
for  nobler  living.  The  contention  of  Pro- 
fessor James  that  there  is  no  difference 
which  does  not  make  a  difference  is  valid. 
"There  can  be  no  difference  in  abstract 
truth  which  does  not  express  itself  in  a  dif- 
ference of  concrete  fact  and  of  conduct 
consequent  upon  the  fact."  Unless  the 
higher  view  of  the  person  of  Christ  has  some 
direct  bearing  upon  conduct,  it  is  scarcely 
worth  while  to  urge  it. 

The  practical  helpfulness  of  this  truth  of 
Christ's  divinity  lies  just  here.  The  main 
approach  to  the  heart  of  our  religion  is 
through  the  person  of  Christ.  To  be  a 
Christian  is  to  wear  his  name,  to  trust  in 
him,  to  follow  him,  to  do  the  will  of  God 


24        THE   MAIN   POINTS 

as  he  reveals  it  and  by  the  aid  he  lends. 
In  dealing  with  him,  then,  as  "the  way,  the 
truth,  and  the  life,"  are  we  dealing  with  one 
who  stands  altogether  within  the  human 
category,  purer,  wiser,  finer  than  ourselves, 
it  may  be,  but  a  fellow  mortal  still;  or  are 
we  coming  into  personal  relations  with  the 
total  helpfulness  of  One  who  does  sustain 
cosmic  and  eternal  relations  to  human 
need?  When  we  accept  his  invitation, 
"Come  unto  me,"  does  this  movement  of 
the  inner  life  establish  us  in  personal  rela- 
tions with  One  who  could  justly  say,  "All 
power  is  given  unto  me  in  heaven  and  on 
earth"? 

It  has  seemed  to  a  multitude  of  aspiring 
souls  which  no  man  could  number,  of  all 
nations  and  peoples  and  kindreds  and 
tongues,  that  "to  deny  divinity  to  Christ  is 
to  relegate  all  divinity  whatsoever  to  the 
far-off,  shadowy  realm  of  metaphysical  in- 
quiry." On  the  other  hand,  to  recognize  in 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  the  Son  of  God,  the  Sa- 
viour of  mankind,  is  to  receive  a  pledge  of 
the  absolute  and  unutterable  help  of  God  in 
bearing  all  burdens,  in  meeting  all  tempta- 
tions, in  solving  all  human  problems. 

To  "know  Christ,"  with  this  higher  view 
of  his  person,  is  to  come  into  living  rela- 


DIVINITY  OF   CHRIST      25 

tions  with  help  inexhaustible.  He  is  able 
to  mediate  unto  us  "the  power  of  God  unto 
salvation."  The  moral  vigor,  the  confident 
assurance,  the  unquenchable  hope  begotten 
of  this  firm  faith  are  voiced  in  those  words 
of  the  apostle,  "He  that  spared  not  his  own 
Son,  but  delivered  him  up  for  us  all,  how 
shall  he  not  with  him  also  freely  give  us  all 
things?" 

Look  up,  then,  with  eager,  expectant 
faith  to  Jesus  Christ,  Son  of  man  and  Son 
of  God,  the  representative  Man  on  earth, 
the  Eternal  prototype  in  the  Being  of  God 
of  a  perfected  humanity!  How  full  of  moral 
inspiration  and  stimulus  becomes  the  con- 
ception of  him  as  the  Head  of  a  redeemed 
humanity!  The  thoughts,  the  desires,  the 
determinations  cherished  in  any  brain  utter 
themselves  in  effective  influence  upon  the 
health,  the  movements,  the  efficiency  of 
the  whole  body!  Thus  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  the  Head  of  humanity,  through  the 
concepts  he  holds,  through  the  desires  he 
cherishes  on  our  behalf,  through  the  high 
determinations  of  his  eternal  purpose,  be- 
comes the  decisive  force  in  the  life  of  the 
race  to  which  he  stands  thus  organically 
related. 

Christ  the  true  Vine,  and  Christian  people 


26        THE   MAIN   POINTS 

the  branches!  Out  of  that  Vine  flows  a 
stream  of  spiritual  power,  making  the 
branches,  incorporate  with  him  by  personal 
choice  and  consecration,  alive  with  the 
Vine's  own  mighty  energy,  making  them 
fruitful  in  terms  of  individual  experience 
by  the  power  of  the  Vine's  own  splendid 
fruitfulness !  The  graft  lives  and  thrives 
by  the  vital  energies  of  the  larger  life  with 
which  it  has  become  incorporate,  yet  declar- 
ing in  the  manner  of  fruit  it  bears  the  par- 
ticular marks  of  its  own  original  endowment. 
"The  blending  of  the  human  and  divine  in 
Christ  is  unique  in  its  perfection  but  repre- 
sentative in  its  ultimate  significance,  for  he 
was  'the  Son  of  man/  the  rightful  heir  to 
all  that  is  human,  in  anticipation  as  well 
as  in  retrospect."  He  interprets  every  life 
to  itself,  and  then  by  the  spiritual  dynamic 
of  fellowship  with  himself  aids  it  toward  its 
perfect  self-realization. 

When  men  once  open  their  minds  freely 
and  sympathetically  to  this  richer  concep- 
tion of  Christ,  not  as  standing  helpless 
among  us,  himself  looking  across  the  chasm 
of  difference  between  the  human  and  the 
divine,  not  as  removed  from  us  in  the  isola- 
tion of  a  being  purely  celestial,  but  as  organ- 
ized with  us,  the  Eternal  Mediator  of  that 


DIVINITY  OF   CHRIST       27 

essential  kinship  between  humanity  and 
divinity  which  is  perpetually  requisite  to 
a  vital  religion,  they  are  in  the  line  of  spirit- 
ual advance!  The  larger  faith,  the  higher 
appraisement  of  his  person,  fills  the  soul  with 
moral  energy,  with  fresh  hope  for  the  race, 
with  magnificent  confidence  that  the  King- 
dom of  God  can  be  established  on  earth 
through  the  Eternal  Headship  of  Jesus 
Christ! 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  ATONEMENT 

THE  Christian  Church  has  concentrated 
its  attention  upon  the  death  of 
Christ.  The  cross  is  the  leading  symbol  in 
Christian  architecture.  The  main  sacra- 
ment is  the  Lord's  Supper,  the  perpetual 
commemoration  of  his  death.  The  feeling 
that  our  salvation  is,  in  some  mysterious 
way,  bound  up  with  the  suffering  of  Christ 
upon  the  cross  is  widespread. 

The  impulse  which  thus  finds  expression 
may  be  altogether  sound,  but  many  unreal 
and  artificial  conceptions  of  the  significance 
of  Christ's  death  find  their  way  into  relig- 
ious speech.  Metaphors  like  "ransom"  and 
"debt"  and  "lamb"  are  carelessly  used  as 
if  they  were  the  exact  equivalents  of  certain 
spiritual  realities.  Oriental  symbols  are 
forced  to  serve  as  scientific  definitions  of 
dogmatic  truths.  The  rhetoric  of  impas- 
sioned souls  is  made  to  fill  the  office  of  logic. 
All  this  contributes  to  the  confusion  and 
uncertainty  in  many  a  thoughtful  mind 
regarding  the  atonement. 
28 


THE   ATONEMENT         29 

Three  main  theories  have  been  advanced 
as  to  the  significance  of  the  death  of  Christ 
for  the  moral  recovery  of  the  race.  The 
first  is  built  upon  the  analogies  of  the  civil 
law.  It  is  known  as  "the  satisfaction  the- 
ory." The  law  of  God  provides  that  "The 
wages  of  sin  is  death."  Men  have  broken 
that  law.  They  consequently  stand  con- 
demned to  death  without  remedy.  They 
must  pay  the  full  price  of  their  transgres- 
sion. The  justice  of  God  is  such  that  He 
can  suffer  no  violation  of  his  laws  without 
meting  out  the  appropriate  penalty.  But 
before  sentence  is  actually  executed,  Jesus 
Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  voluntarily  endures 
upon  the  cross  the  penalty  due  to  men  for 
their  sins  and  thus  purchases  their  release. 
Therefore,  when  guilty  men  accept  this 
arrangement  and  take  advantage  of  what  he 
has  done  for  them,  they  are  forgiven. 

The  second  theory  is  cast  in  the  forms  of 
the  criminal  law  and  is  known  as  "the  gov- 
ernmental theory."  God  is  ready  to  for- 
give penitent  wrong-doers  —  indeed,  there 
is  no  more  mercy  in  Christ  than  in  God, 
and  no  stricter  justice  in  the  Father  than  in 
the  Son.  But  if  God  were  freely  to  forgive 
guilty  men  simply  upon  condition  of  their 
penitence,  without  their  suffering  the  full 


30        THE   MAIN   POINTS 

penalty  of  their  evil-doing  or  having  any 
one  suffer  it  for  them,  the  majesty  of  God's 
government  would  be  lowered.  His  admin- 
istration would  be  despised  and  its  restrain- 
ing moral  force  weakened. 

The  demand  for  an  atonement,  there- 
fore, lies,  not  in  the  strict  justice  of  God, 
but  in  the  exigencies  of  his  moral  govern- 
ment. It  was  not  to  pay  the  price  of  man's 
release,  but  to  show  how  God  hates  sin,  to 
uphold  the  majesty  of  God's  government 
for  administrative  ends,  and  to  make  for- 
giveness consistent  with  the  maintenance  of 
a  righteous  order,  that  Christ  suffered  the 
penalty  of  our  wrong-doing  on  the  cross. 

The  advocates  of  the  third  theory  sit  in 
judgment  upon  the  two  preceding  theories. 
They  maintain  that  there  can  be  no  trans- 
fer of  guilt  or  of  merit  from  one  to  another. 
Debts  are  transferable,  but  guilt  is  personal 
and  merit  is  personal;  to  talk  of  imputing 
either,  is  ethical  shuffling.  The  familiar 
words,  "the  merits  of  Christ,"  were  never 
used  by  the  authors  of  the  New  Testament. 
And  were  such  transfer  of  merit  possible, 
would  it  not  bring  a  fearful  charge  against 
any  government  to  say  that  its  penalties 
might  be  "bought  off"?  Moreover,  the 
same  sin  cannot  be  both  punished  and  for- 


THE   ATONEMENT         31 

given.  If  Christ  suffered  the  penalty  due 
to  our  transgressions,  then  all  possibility  of 
forgiveness  is  excluded  —  we  are  free  as  a 
matter  of  justice. 

And  the  claim  that  Christ  suffered  to  show 
the  majesty  of  God's  government  fares  no 
better.  Would  it  reveal  majesty  in  a  gov- 
ernment, they  ask,  to  punish  the  innocent 
instead  of  the  guilty,  even  though  the  inno- 
cent should  consent?  Would  it  impress 
horse  thieves  for  the  State  to  arrest  an  inno- 
cent man  now  and  then  and  impute  to  him 
the  guilt  of  horse  stealing,  hanging  him  to 
show  the  offenders  how  the  State  hates 
their  crime  and  how  its  majestic  justice 
must  be  satisfied  by  some  victim,  innocent 
or  guilty?  Even  though  some  innocent  man 
with  a  mistaken  sense  of  what  would  be 
best  should  consent  to  be  thus  hanged,  such 
a  transaction  would  bring  a  blot  upon  civic 
administration. 

The  claim  is  therefore  made  that  Christ 
came  into  the  world  to  teach,  to  live,  to 
heal,  and  to  bless,  knowing  that  he  would 
be  put  to  death  in  the  midst  of  his  holy, 
beneficent  work.  He  died  to  show  us  that 
the  divine  love  stops  at  nothing  —  God 
loves  men  even  to  the  point  of  self-sacrifice. 
Calvary  is  a  revelation  in  time  of  the  length 


32        THE   MAIN   POINTS 

and  breadth  and  height  and  depth  of  that 
love  which  passeth  knowledge.  If  anything 
will  melt  the  hearts  of  guilty  men,  surely 
the  sight  of  Christ,  dying  upon  the  cross  for 
them,  as  the  climax  and  crown  of  his  saving 
life,  must  melt  them.  This  is  "the  moral 
influence  theory"  of  the  atonement. 

These  three  theories  practically  cover  the 
ground  in  that  section  of  our  traditional  the- 
ology. You  have  heard  them  all  and  pon- 
dered them,  but  somehow  you  were  not 
convinced.  The  satisfaction  idea,  dollar  for 
dollar,  so  much  suffering  endured  by  Christ 
to  purchase  so  much  forgiveness  and  mercy 
for  us,  did  not  seem  like  the  atmosphere  of 
the  New  Testament.  "Strict  justice  is  not 
satisfied  if  the  innocent  suffer;  it  requires 
the  punishment  of  the  guilty."  The  mani- 
fest injustice  of  it  did  not  commend  to  you 
such  ethical  bargaining;  you  shrank  from 
pressing  forward  to  avail  yourself  of  such  a 
scheme.  ' 

The  second  theory  represents  God  as 
bound  hand  and  foot  by  the  exigencies  of 
his  own  government.  He  desires  to  forgive 
sinful  men  when  they  turn  to  him  in  peni- 
tence, but  fears  for  the  majesty  of  his  admin- 
istration. But  does  the  makeshift  named 
save  that  majesty?  Does  it  not  load  it 


THE   ATONEMENT         33 

with  a  further  burden  grievous  to  be  borne? 
And  the  sufferings  of  Christ  are  nowhere 
referred  to  in  the  Scriptures  as  having  been 
in  any  sense  "a  punishment." 

The  •  moral  influence  theory  does  not  in 
any  sufficient  way  meet  and  explain  the  many 
texts  of  Scripture  dealing  with  this  vital 
truth.  The  authors  of  the  New  Testament 
certainly  saw  in  the  death  of  Christ  some- 
thing more  than  the  sufferings  of  a  martyr 
or  the  spectacular  exhibition  of  the  divine 
mercy.  Thus  all  the  views  advanced  seem 
to  fall  short  of  a  satisfactory  interpretation 
of  the  death  of  Christ. 

We  may  be  sure  that  in  Christ's  work  of 
reconciliation  there  were  "no  fictions  or 
unrealities,  no  transactions  that  were  not 
expressive  of  eternal  verity.  Christ  was  not 
regarded  by  God  as  anything  that  he  was 
not,  nor  are  men  in  their  relation  to  Christ 
viewed  as  anything  but  what  they  are. 
There  is  no  unreal  changing  of  places  or 
imputation  to  any  one  of  character  that  does 
not  belong  to  him."  l  These  traditional 
interpretations  seem  to  ignore  certain  moral 
realities,  and  they  certainly  fail  adequately  to 
interpret  the  message  of  the  Scriptures  bear- 
ing upon  the  work  of  moral  reconciliation. 
1  Clark,  "Outline  of  Christian  Theology,"  page  333. 


34        THE   MAIN   POINTS 

The  doctrine  of  the  atonement  must  be 
so  framed  that  conscience  and  reason  will 
respond.  Men  will  not  accept  some  "plan 
of  salvation"  if  it  is  irrational  or  absurd,  if 
it  ignores  moral  facts,  or  creates  apparent 
disagreement  between  the  character  of  the 
Father  and  that  of  the  Son;  nor  will  they 
rest  in  any  view  which  ignores  the  teaching 
of  Scripture  on  this  fundamental  question, 
or  which  fails  to  satisfy  the  profounder  inti- 
mations of  the  moral  nature,  painfully  con- 
scious of  its  need  of  redemption. 

In  the  discussion  of  the  atonement  it  is 
well  to  distinguish  between  the  fact  and  the 
human  theories  about  the  fact.  However 
we  may  try  to  explain  it,  "the  atonement  is 
the  work  of  God's  love  in  its  bearing  upon 
man's  sin."  The  great  fact  is  that  God  so 
loved  the  world  as  to  give  his  only  begotten 
Son,  and  the  love  of  the  Son  impelled 
him  to  die  on  our  behalf.  There  is  no 
dispute  here.  But  when  we  come  to  theo- 
rize upon  the  relation  of  his  death  to  the 
moral  laws  of  the  universe,  we  find  disa- 
greement. 

A  man  could  live  a  worthy  Christian  life, 
however,  on  the  great  fact  that  God  so  loved 
the  world  as  to  give  his  Son,  even  though 
he  found  himself  unable  to  frame  an  entirely 


THE   ATONEMENT         35 

satisfactory  theory  regarding  the  atonement. 
"Life  eludes  definition  and  analysis,  and 
grows  according  to  its  own  laws.  While 
scholars  were  beating  out  the  articles  of  the 
Creed  of  Chalcedon,  all  through  the  world, 
in  serene  unconsciousness,  humble  spirits 
were  following  Jesus  in  the  realization  of 
fatherhood  and  brotherhood.  While  the 
reformed  divines  by  every  device  known  to 
logic  were  packing  words  with  'sovereignty, 
reprobation,  and  expiation,'  millions  who 
never  heard  of  a  logical  process  were  yielding 
to  the  mastery  of  Jesus  and  learning  at  first 
hand  that  he  is  the  Way  and  the  Truth  and 
the  Life."  » 

t 

The  Scriptures  uniformly  represent  Christ, 
not  as  reconciling  an  angry  God  to  us,  but 
as  reconciling  us  to  God.  They  show  "God 
willing  and  men  unwilling.  Reconciliation 
is  proposed  between  two  parties,  of  whom 
one  has  a  heart  for  it  and  the  other  has  little 
or  none.  Hence,  just  as  we  should  expect, 
if  one  party  was  willing  and  the  other  was 
not,  we  find  the  willing  taking  the  initia- 
tive. God  himself  has  given  Christ  to  be 
a  propitiation,  and  a  God  who  will  himself 
provide  a  propitiation  has  no  need  of  one  in 

H.  Bradford,  "The  Growing  Revelation,"  page 


36        THE   MAIN   POINTS 

the  sense  which  the  word  has  ordinarily 
borne."  » 

The  Scriptures  bear  uniform  testimony  on 
this  point.  "God  was  in  Christ,  reconciling 
the  world  unto  himself."  "If,  when  we 
were  enemies,  we  were  reconciled  to  God  by 
the  death  of  his  Son,  much  more,  being  rec- 
onciled, we  shall  be  saved  by  his  life."  "If 
any  man  be  in  Christ,  he  is  a  new  creature: 
old  things  are  passed  away;  behold,  all 
things  are  become  new.  And  all  things  are 
of  God,  who  hath  reconciled  us  to  himself 
by  Jesus  Christ."  "We  also  joy  in  God 
through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  by  whom  we 
have  now  received  the  atonement." 

The  word  atonement  is  used  but  once 
in  the  New  Testament.  The  Greek  word 
there  translated  "atonement"  is  elsewhere 
translated  "reconciliation."  In  the  three 
passages  quoted  above,  the  word  for  "  recon- 
cile" or  "reconciliation"  is  the  same  word 
translated  "atonement"  in  this  single  pas- 
sage. If  we  make  the  translation  uniform 
throughout,  we  find  that  God  "hath  given 
to  us  the  ministry  of  atonement."  We  find 
Paul  urging  a  certain  Corinthian  woman  to 
be  "atoned  to  her  husband"  —  that  is, 
restored  to  loyalty  and  affection  toward 

1  dark,  "Christian  Theology,"  pages  234-335. 


THE   ATONEMENT         37 

him.  The  term  has  reference  to  the  resto- 
ration of  a  personal  relation  which  had  been 
interrupted  by  wrong-doing. 

The  Scriptures  teach  that  all  barriers 
between  a  holy  God  and  sinful  men  are 
cleared  away  when  we  turn  from  our  sins 
and  become  personal  believers  in  Jesus  Christ. 
But  if  there  were  barriers  on  God's  part 
which  demanded  the  death  of  an  innocent 
victim  before  forgiveness  could  be  extended 
to  the  penitent,  Jesus  does  not  seem  to  know 
about  them.  He  invited  men  to  come 
directly  to  the  Father  in  penitent  faith,  ask- 
ing forgiveness;  and,  according  to  his  teach- 
ings, they  were  forgiven,  not  because  some 
penalty  had  been  paid  or  satisfaction  made, 
to  which  their  attention  was  directed  as 
the  ground  on  which  to  hope  for  pardon 
—  they  were  forgiven  because  they  came  in 
penitence  and  faith.  The  publican  prayed, 
"God  be  merciful  to  me  a  sinner,"  —  and 
he  went  down  to  his  house  "justified,"  with- 
out any  reference  to  a  present  or  prospective 
ground  of  forgiveness,  to  be  purchased  only 
by  the  blood  of  the  innocent.  It  was  a 
fatal  omission  in  the  parable,  unless  peni- 
tent and  believing  men  are  always  forgiven 
simply  because  their  Father  desires  to  for- 
give them. 


38        THE   MAIN   POINTS 

Jesus  taught  us  to  pray,  "Forgive  us  our 
debts,  as  we  forgive  our  debtors."  "If  ye 
forgive  men  their  trespasses,"  he  said, 
"your  heavenly  Father  will  also  forgive 
you."  The  genuineness  of  our  penitence  and 
the  new  purpose  toward  God  would  be  indi- 
cated by  the  forgiving  spirit  toward  others; 
and  this  penitence  and  faith  were  made  by 
him  the  sole  conditions  of  forgiveness. 

The  thief  on  the  cross  prayed,  "Lord, 
remember  me  when  thou  comest  into  thy 
kingdom."  He  had  already  said,  "We  are 
suffering  justly  for  our  deeds."  Repent- 
ance, confession,  faith,  again  —  and  Jesus 
forgave  him,  assuring  him  an  entrance  into 
the  kingdom!  It  was  a  singular  omission 
that  he  there  made  no  reference  to  the  con- 
nection of  his  own  sufferings  with  the  pos- 
sibilities of  forgiveness,  if  that  suffering 
constituted  in  his  mind  the  sole  ground  of 
forgiveness. 

Jesus  taught  that  the  method  of  divine 
forgiveness  finds  its  prototype  in  the  method 
of  human  forgiveness.  "Forgive  as  we  for- 
give," was  his  direction  as  to  the  confidence 
in  which  we  should  pray.  If  ye  then,  being 
evil,  know  how  to  forgive  men  their  tres- 
passes when  they  turn  to  you  in  open 
acknowledgment  of  fault  and  with  confi- 


THE  ATONEMENT         39 

dence  in  your  generosity,  how  much  more 
will  your  heavenly  Father  forgive  you  when 
you  turn  to  him  in  the  same  way!  This 
was  the  uniform  teaching  of  Jesus. 

It  was  his  own  unfailing  habit  with  bur- 
dened penitent  souls.  Did  he  omit  the  very 
cornerstone  of  the  gospel  in  teaching  that 
the  willing  mercy  of  God  is  the  sole  and  suffi- 
cient ground  for  human  forgiveness?  He 
had  not  yet  died,  it  is  true,  but  he  knew  that 
he  was  to  die.  He  spoke  repeatedly  of  the 
decease  he  was  to  accomplish  at  Jerusalem. 
It  seems  impossible  that  his  confident 
offers  of  mercy  were  made  upon  a  ground 
which  in  a  few  months  would  be  rendered 
false  and  unsafe  by  his  death  upon  the 
cross. 

After  wandering  through  elaborate  the- 
ories and  intricate  reasonings  about  commer- 
cial exchanges  and  judicial  experiments, 
about  imputation  of  guilt  and  of  merit  where 
they  do  not  rightly  belong,  we  find  it  refresh- 
ing to  turn  back  to  the  original  Christianity 
of  Jesus  Christ.  How  little  he  seemed  to 
know  of  all  these  elaborations!  How  far 
from  their  intricacy  were  his  plain  state- 
ments about  forgiveness  and  mercy!  If  any 
man  came  back  from  the  far  country  of 
wrong-doing  and  stood  before  the  Father, 


40       THE   MAIN   POINTS 

saying,  "I  have  sinned  against  heaven,  and 
before  thee,"  he  was  forgiven  at  once,  with- 
out any  reference  to  his  confidence  in  some 
scheme  making  it  possible  for  a  Father  to 
forgive  his  penitent  child.  The  very  words 
"reconciliation,"  "atonement,"  "propitia- 
tion," "justification  "  never  occur  in  the 
four  Gospels  at  all.  The  Master,  who  spake 
as  never  man  spake,  lived  his  life,  delivered 
his  message,  and  finished  the  work  which 
the  Father  had  given  him  to  do,  without 
finding  it  necessary  or  appropriate  to  use 
any  one  of  them. 

The  great  forgiving  love  of  God,  unpur- 
chased  by  anybody,  unhindered  by  any 
governmental  embarrassments,  leaping  the 
barriers  which  sin  interposes,  has  been  ever 
seeking  the  lost  that  it  might  bring  them 
salvation.  We  have  obscured  it  by  our 
clever  theories.  We  have  dimmed  its  light 
by  an  unwarranted  use  of  certain  expres- 
sions in  the  epistles.  These  expressions  were 
natural  to  the  Hebrew  mind,  trained  as  it 
was  in  an  ecclesiastical  system  where  the 
offering  of  bloody  sacrifices  bore  a  promi- 
nent part.  Jesus  transcended  the  habits  of 
thought  prevalent  among  his  own  people. 
He  moved  upon  a  higher  level  than  the  one 
held  by  the  cult  and  practise  of  the  Jewish 


THE   ATONEMENT         41 

Church.  When  we  turn  to  his  utterances, 
therefore,  we  find  no  word  indicative  of 
obstacles  between  the  free,  unpurchased, 
forgiving  love  of  God  and  the  moral  needs 
of  a  penitent  heart. 

The  claim  has  been  made  that  in  all  the 
references  to  the  blood  of  bulls  and  of  goats 
in  the  Old  Testament  we  are  to  find  types  and 
anticipations  of  the  one  perfect  sacrifice 
offered  at  last  in  the  death  of  Christ.  But 
the  choicer  spirits  of  the  Old  Testament 
knew  the  mind  of  God  sufficiently  to  see  that 
he  forgave  men  then,  not  on  account  of  the 
bloody  sacrifice,  but  on  account  of  their 
penitence  and  faith. 

Hear  David,  "Thou  desireth  not  sacrifice; 
else  would  I  give  it:  thou  delightest  not  in 
burnt  offering.  The  sacrifices  of  God  are 
a  broken  spirit:  a  broken  and  a  contrite 
heart!" 

And  Samuel,  "Hath  the  Lord  as  great 
delight  in  burnt  offerings  and  sacrifices  as 
in  obeying  the  voice  of  the  Lord?  Behold, 
to  obey  is  better  than  sacrifice,  and  to 
hearken  than  the  fat  of  rams!" 

And  Isaiah,  "To  what  purpose  is  the 
multitude  of  your  sacrifices  unto  me?  saith 
the  Lord.  .  .  .  Who  hath  required  this  at 
your  hand?  .  .  .  Let  the  wicked  forsake 


42        THE   MAIN   POINTS 

his  way,  and  the  unrighteous  man  his 
thoughts:  and  let  him  return  unto  the  Lord, 
and  he  will  have  mercy  upon  him;  and 
to  our  God,  for  he  will  abundantly  par- 
don .  .  .  Cease  to  do  evil;  learn  to  do  well. 
.  .  .  Come  now,  and  let  us  reason  together, 
saith  the  Lord;  though  your  sins  be  as  scar- 
let, they  shall  be  as  white  as  snow!" 

And  Hosea,  "I  desired  mercy,  and  not 
sacrifice;  and  the  knowledge  of  God  more 
than  burnt  offerings!" 

And  Micah,  "Wherewith  shall  I  come 
before  the  Lord?  .  .  .  Shall  I  come  before 
him  with  burnt  offerings,  with  calves  of  a 
year  old?  Will  the  Lord  be  pleased  with 
thousands  of  rams,  or  with  ten  thousands  of 
rivers  of  oil?  .  .  .  He  hath  showed  thee,  O 
man,  what  is  good;  and  what  doth  the  Lord 
require  of  thee,  but  to  do  justly,  and  to  love 
mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly  with  thy  God?" 

And  Jeremiah,  "Thus  saith  the  Lord  of 
hosts:  ...  I  spake  not  unto  your  fathers, 
nor  commanded  them  in  the  day  that  I 
brought  them  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  con- 
cerning burnt  offerings  or  sacrifices:  but  this 
thing  commanded  I  them,  saying,  Obey  my 
voice,  and  I  will  be  your  God,  and  ye  shall 
be  my  people!" 

And  Ezekiel,  "When  the  wicked  man  turn- 


THE  ATONEMENT         43 

eth  away  from  his  wickedness  that  he  hath 
committed,  and  doeth  that  which  is  lawful 
and  right,  he  shall  save  his  soul  alive.  .  .  . 
All  his  transgressions  that  he  hath  com- 
mitted, they  shall  not  be  mentioned  unto 
him." 

These  prophetic  words  are  taken  from  the 
lips  of  the  leading  men  in  the  Old  Testament, 
the  men  of  vision  and  insight.  Their  com- 
bined message  is  to  the  effect  that  the  for- 
giving mercy  of  God  is  neither  purchased  nor 
purchasable;  it  is  freely  bestowed,  upon  all 
who  seek  it,  as  an  act  of  grace.  It  cannot 
be  said  that,  in  speaking  in  this  derogatory 
way  of  the  idea  of  purchasing  reconcilia- 
tion by  bloody  sacrifices,  the  prophets  were 
simply  emphasizing  the  necessity  of  accom- 
panying these  offerings  by  penitence  and 
faith.  The  prophets  did  not  hesitate  to 
put  themselves  in  open  antagonism  to  those 
priestly  views  advanced  by  the  upholders 
of  ritualism. 

The  prophets  saw  that  the  priestly  class, 
with  its  theories  of  judicial  exchange  and 
imputation  of  guilt  to  innocent  victims,  with 
its  notion  of  appeasing  a  wrath  which  no 
longer  exists  when  sinful  men  face  about  in 
penitence,  was  confusing  and  misleading  to 
the  people.  They  stood  at  the  high-water 


44        THE   MAIN   POINTS 

mark  of  Old  Testament  inspiration,  point- 
ing men,  not  to  the  wringing  of  the  neck  of 
a  pigeon,  or  to  the  cutting  of  the  throat  of 
a  lamb,  as  the  ground  of  forgiveness,  but 
rather  to  the  free,  unpurchased  and  unpur- 
chasable  mercy  of  God. 

We  have  heard  "plans  of  salvation"  and 
"schemes  of  redemption"  put  forward,  which 
were  travesties  upon  the  divine  character. 
A  popular  evangelist  has  been  accustomed 
to  represent  the  atonement  after  this  fash- 
ion: A  father  and  son  had  become  estranged 
by  the  son's  wrong-doing.  The  young  man 
left  his  home  in  anger,  vowing  he  would 
never  come  back  until  the  father  softened 
toward  him  and  asked  for  his  return.  The 
heart-broken  mother  sought  with  all  her  love 
to  induce  him  to  come  home,  but  he  refused. 
She  pleaded  with  the  father  to  request  the 
return,  but  his  patience  had  been  sorely  tried 
by  the  dissolute  habits  of  his  boy,  and  he 
would  not  yield.  The  mother  grew  sick 
unto  death  and  a  message  was  sent  in  her 
name,  imploring  the  boy  to  come  home  and 
see  her  before  she  died.  He  still  remained 
obdurate,  until  the  father  sent  a  message 
in  his  own  name,  and  then  the  son  came. 
But  still  the  father  and  son  were  unrecon- 
ciled —  they  stood  on  opposite  sides  of 


THE   ATONEMENT         45 

the  mother's  death-bed,  proudly  unwilling 
to  speak  to  each  other.  She  saw  the  gulf 
between  them,  and  at  last  reaching  out,  took 
the  hand  of  each,  clasped  them  together, 
and,  holding  them  in  her  own  hand,  passed 
away.  The  hands  which  she  had  clasped 
together  in  her  dying  love  the  father  and  son 
could  not  now  unclasp  in  enmity.  So  hand 
in  hand  they  knelt  and  implored  forgiveness, 
human  and  divine,  and  thus  were  reconciled. 
She  who  in  life  had  failed  to  reconcile  them, 
at  last  reconciled  them  in  her  death. 

And  this  terrible  story  of  a  father's 
haughty,  unwilling  pride  was  supposed  to 
show  how  God,  who  so  loved  the  world  as  to 
send  his  only  Son,  is  induced  to  forgive  his 
wayward  but  returning  children!  What  a 
caricature  of  him  concerning  whom  Jesus  said : 
"  He  that  hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the  Father ! " 
Against  all  attempts,  whether  they  are  made 
openly  in  the  name  of  the  devil,  or  covertly 
in  the  name  of  what  would  call  itself  evangel- 
ical, to  put  a  blot  on  the  Father's  face,  which 
shines  and  has  always  shone  with  forgiving 
welcome  for  the  man  who  turns  away  from 
his  wrong-doing,  we  strongly  protest. 

The  death  of  Christ  was  an  event  in  his- 
tory, but  it  was  the  revelation  in  time  of 
something  eternal.  The  Scriptures  speak  of 


46        THE   MAIN   POINTS 

Christ  as  "the  Lamb  slain  from  the  founda- 
tion of  the  world."  This  utterance  of  the 
Spirit  lifts  the  atoning  work  of  Christ  up 
into  timeless  and  cosmic  relations;  it  expresses 
that  eternal  heartache  and  heart-break  of 
the  Father  over  the  wrong-doing  of  his 
children.  It  indicates  an  element  in  the 
divine  character  which  suffers  and  makes 
sacrifice  in  the  work  of  rescuing  the  chil- 
dren. The  love  of  God  in  Christ,  that  great 
shepherd  of  the  sheep,  leaves  the  ninety  and 
nine  and  goes  forth  redemptively  at  per- 
sonal cost,  seeking  the  one  that  is  lost. 

Jesus  pictured  this  divine  effort  for  our 
recovery  as  the  act  of  One  who,  having  life 
in  himself,  imparts  himself  in  the  act  of 
sacrifice.  "This  is  my  body"  —  broken  and 
given  for  us!  "This  is  my  blood"  —  wash- 
ing away  our  sins  and  renewing  our  natures 
in  holiness! 

"The  blood  is  the  life."  Its  office  in  the 
human  body  is  to  cleanse  and  to  feed  the 
organism.  The  moral  life  of  man,  now  be- 
come diseased  and  feeble,  is  cleansed  and 
renewed  by  the  outpoured  life  of  Christ. 
His  offered  life,  taken  by  us  in  grateful  appro- 
priation, removes  the  stain  and  nourishes 
the  weakened  nature  into  moral  health. 

This  is  atonement  indeed.     It  is  as  though 


THE  ATONEMENT         47 

he  opened  the  veins  of  his  own  nature,  strong 
and  holy,  in  willing  sacrifice,  infusing  into 
sinful  but  penitent,  receptive  humanity 
that  new  life  which  effects  our  reconcilia- 
tion with  God.  Thus  in  the  simple,  accurate 
language  of  Scripture,  "we  are  saved  by 
the  blood  of  Christ."  It  is  our  union  with 
the  holy  life  of  Jesus,  offered  and  poured 
out  for  the  world's  redemption,  which  re- 
stores us  to  the  favor  and  the  likeness  of 
God. 

We  are  aided  toward  a  right  conception 
of  this  sublime  truth  by  an  Old  Testament 
picture  of  redemption  through  suffering, 
wrought  out  in  terms  of  human  experience. 
The  prophet  Hosea  married  a  woman  to 
whom  he  gave  his  entire  affection.  She  was 
a  fickle,  shallow  creature.  She  presently 
turned  away  from  her  husband's  devotion 
to  cultivate  unholy  intimacies  with  other 
lovers.  Hosea  recognized  the  bitter  trag- 
edy which  had  fallen  upon  his  home,  but  in 
the  greatness  of  his  moral  nature  he  loved 
her  still.  When  a  babe  was  born  in  that 
house,  hers  but  not  his,  he  rose  up  in  anguish 
of  heart  and  gave  the  child  a  name  indica- 
tive of  the  sad  situation  —  "Lo-Ammi," 
"not  my  people."  Finally  the  unfaithful 
wife  left  him  and  became  openly  dissolute. 


48        THE   MAIN   POINTS 

She  sank  lower  and  lower,  until  she  was 
bought  and  sold  as  a  common  slave. 

But  Hosea  never  ceased  to  love  her. 
When  he  saw  her  exposed  for  sale  in  the 
slave  market,  though  his  affection  had  been 
outraged,  he  loved  her  in  all  her  pitiable 
degradation.  In  the  great  compassion  of 
his  heart,  he  went  up  and  bought  her  from 
her  owner.  He  took  her  to  his  home  and 
reclaimed  her  from  the  life  of  shame. 

Here  you  have  the  word  of  vicarious 
suffering  made  flesh.  Here  is  the  work  of 
atonement  dwelling  among  us  full  of  grace 
and  truth.  When  Hosea  paid  that  slave 
dealer  the  price  of  an  immoral  woman,  he 
suffered  such  agony  of  heart  as  any  man  of 
honor  must  were  the  woman  one  he  loved 
—  he  became  sin  for  her!  When  he  walked 
down  street  with  the  disgraced  woman  at 
his  side,  leading  her  to  his  home,  he  was 
wounded  for  her  transgressions,  he  was 
bruised  for  her  inquities!  When  he  shared 
with  her  the  pain  and  sorrow  of  her  wrong- 
doing, the  chastisement  of  her  peace  was 
upon  him  and  by  his  stripes  she  was  healed. 
This  devoted  husband,  so  foully  wronged, 
took  up  his  cross  and  faced  toward  Calvary, 
redeeming  the  sinful  woman  he  loved  by  his 
agony  and  bloody  sweat! 


THE   ATONEMENT         49 

Sin  is  an  offense  against  love;  it  is  contempt 
for  holy  affection.  Redemption  is  accom- 
plished by  the  patient  energy  of  that  ten- 
der, persistent  love  which  will  not  give  up 
its  claim  nor  accept  defeat.  Here  in  the 
sublime  action  of  this  prophet  of  old  stands 
revealed  that  redemptive  power  enduring 
pain  and  mortification,  insult,  and  disgrace, 
that  it  may  recover  the  sinful  soul  from  its 
wrong  course!  There  is  not  an  artificial 
note  in  it  from  first  to  last!  And  this  pain- 
ful story  of  the  tragedy  in  Hosea's  home, 
and  of  his  suffering  in  the  recovery  of  the 
guilty  woman,  affords  us  light,  when  we  study 
the  vaster  tragedy  wrought  in  the  world  by 
human  sin.  It  aids  us  in  interpreting  the 
divine  compassion,  revealed  in  the  self- 
sacrifice  of  Christ  in  its  bearing  upon  the 
moral  recovery  of  that  world. 

The  universe  is  full  of  this  vicarious  prin- 
ciple. One  thing  lays  down  its  life  for  an- 
other. The  vegetable  world  lays  down  its 
life  that  horses  and  cattle  may  live  and  be 
useful  in  ways  impossible  to  oats  and  corn. 
The  lower  forms  of  animal  life,  the  cattle, 
the  sheep,  and  the  fowls,  lay  down  their 
lives  that  human  life  may  be  fed  and  made 
effective.  Everything  is  bought  with  a 
price. 


So        THE   MAIN   POINTS 

Men  lay  down  their  lives,  sometimes  in 
single  heroic  acts  of  martyrdom,  sometimes 
by  years  of  patient,  self-denying  service. 
The  physician  robs  himself  of  sleep,  hurries 
through  his  meals,  carries  the  anxiety  of  a 
hundred  households  at  a  time,  and  dies  all 
too  soon,  having  laid  his  life  on  the  altar 
of  the  community's  improved  health. 
School-teachers  lay  their  nerves,  their 
health,  and  sometimes  the  gentler  quali- 
ties of  character,  on  the  altar  of  education 
for  restless,  thoughtless  boys  and  girls. 
Railroad  engineers,  watching  the  track  with 
eagle  eye,  enduring  that  nervous  strain 
which  cuts  into  life  with  sharp  strokes, 
ready  to  be  the  first  to  meet  the  washout 
or  the  broken  rail,  are  types  of  sacrifice, 
denying  themselves  for  the  comfort  of  those 
who  sleep  securely  in  the  Pullmans.  Hus- 
bands and  wives,  easily  able  to  support 
themselves  and  attain  a  competence  for  old 
age,  suffer  and  sacrifice  for  the  comfort, 
education,  and  well-being  of  their  children. 
"All  this  is  of  the  nature  of  atonement,  and 
there  is  no  corner  of  the  world  where  the 
letters  of  this  word  may  not  be  spelled  out, 
like  a  dim  and  broken  inscription  on  the 
fragments  of  human  life."  *  Everywhere  the 
1  V»n  Dyke,  "Gospel  for  a  World  of  Sin,"  page  135. 


THE   ATONEMENT         51 

vicarious  principle  is  at  work.  "Except  a 
corn  of  wheat  fall  into  the  ground  and  die, 
it  abideth  alone:  but  if  it  die,  it  bringeth 
forth  much  fruit." 

When  we  reach  the  summit  of  all  being, 
we  should  not  expect  to  find  the  Creator 
ignoring  this  vicarious  principle  with  which 
he  has  filled  the  world.  We  are  prepared 
by  our  survey  of  these  phenomena  to  accept 
the  doctrine  of  atonement.  He,  too,  suffers 
and  sacrifices  for  his  children.  The  throne 
of  God  is  not  cold  marble,  melted  at  last 
by  what  was  seen  on  Calvary  —  it  has  been 
from  the  first  a  throne  of  self-sacrificing 
mercy.  The  "Lamb  which  is  in  the  midst 
of  the  throne"  is  a  "Lamb  slain  from  the 
foundation  of  the  world."  "Law  and  grace 
are  co-ordinate  and  harmonious  expres- 
sions of  one  and  the  same  reality,  the  oppo- 
sition of  God  to  sin,  and  his  desire  that  his 
creatures  may  be  free  from  it." 

The  vindication  of  this  doctrine  of  atone- 
ment is  to  be  found  in  actual  life.  The 
wise  men  sometimes  confuse  us  with  their 
philosophic  efforts  at  the  adjustment  of  the 
benefits  of  the  Saviour's  sacrifice  of  himself, 
but  the  active  participants  in  the  work  of 
saving  a  world  that  groans  and  travails  in 
pain  entailed  upon  it  by  wrong-doing  bring 


52        THE   MAIN   POINTS 

us  a  sure  word  of  interpretation.  "Nothing 
short  of  this  experience  of  earnest  service 
and  unflinching  sacrifice  for  the  triumph  of 
God's  will  and  the  good  of  man  can  inter- 
pret to  us  to-day  the  meaning  of  the  sacrifice 
of  Christ.  Every  man  who  has  tried  to  do 
these  things  in  any  degree  knows  full  well 
that  there  can  be  no  salvation  either  from 
sin  or  from  the  misery  sin  entails  on  guilty 
and  innocent  alike  save  by  the  vicarious 
sacrifice  of  some  brave,  generous  servant  of 
righteousness  and  benefactor  of  his  fellows. 
The  doctrine  of  atonement  is  self-evident  to 
every  man  who  ever  fought  intrenched  and 
powerful  evil,  or  sought  to  rescue  the  wicked 
from  their  wickednes^.  To  those  who  have 
never  touched  the  fearful  burden  of  human 
sin  and  misery  with  so  much  as  the  tips  of 
their  dainty  and  critical  fingers,  the  doc- 
trine of  vicarious  suffering,  like  all  the  deeper 
truths  of  the  spiritual  life,  must  remain 
forever  an  unintelligible  and  impenetrable 
mystery."  l 

The  divine  nature  in  all  its  self-relation- 
ships must  of  necessity  contain  moral  mys- 
teries beyond  our  ken.  The  various  theories 
of  the  atonement  have  been  attempts  to 
rationalize  and  comprehend  what  still  eludes 
» Wm.  DC  Wit:  H, :«,  "God's  Education  of  Man." 


THE  ATONEMENT         53 

while  it  entices  our  utmost  effort  of  thought 
and  aspiration.  But  when  the  returns  are 
all  in  from  all  the  theories,  we  still  resort  for 
moral  help  to  the  cardinal  fact  that  God 
so  loved  the  world  as  to  give  his  Son.  "The 
old  idea  that  Christ  died  because  God  was 
insulted  and  must  punish  somebody  fades 
out.  The  conception  of  the  death  of  Jesus 
as  a  mere  exhibition  of  governmental  sever- 
ity for  the  sake  of  keeping  order  in  the  uni- 
verse becomes  too  narrow.  The  measuring 
of  the  precise  amount  of  Christ's  suffering 
as  a  quid  pro  quo  for  an  equal  amount  of 
penalty  incurred  by  human  sin  no  longer 
satisfies  the  moral  sense.  The  cross  itself, 
with  its  simplicity,  its  generosity  of  sacri- 
fice, its  evident  reforming  and  regenerating 
power  upon  the  heart  —  the  cross  itself 
leads  the  race  upward  and  onward  in  the 
interpretation  of  its  message." 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   WORK   OF   THE   HOLY   SPIRIT 

THE  whole  attempt  to  define  the  divine 
force  in  the  life  of  the  world  is  attended 
with  difficulties  insuperable.  The  mind  of 
man  is  not  built  on  a  scale  to  apprehend 
infinite  'reality.  We  may  believe  in  God 
the  Creator,  and  affirm  that  he  is  "the 
Father."  When  we  advance  to  a  belief  in 
"Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,"  we  en- 
counter further  perplexities.  And  when  we 
proceed  to  declare  our  faith  in  "another 
Comforter  who  shall  abide  with  us  forever," 
we  may  feel  ourselves  involved  in  hopeless 
mystery.  There  are  many  earnest  Chris- 
tians who,  if  they  gave  frank  utterance  to 
their  conviction,  would  say  that  the  truths 
regarding  God  the  Father  and  Jesus  the  Son 
bound  their  religious  horizon;  and  so  far  as 
any  experience  of  practical  help  is  concerned, 
they  have  scarcely  heard  that  there  is  any 
Holy  Ghost. 

This   is   due   in   part   to   the   intellectual 
difficulties    involved    in    the    fuller    belief. 
54 


WORK   OF   HOLY   SPIRIT     55 

The  bravest  attempts  of  competent  theolo- 
gians do  not  answer  all  the  questions  arising 
out  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  or  even 
set  that  doctrine  forth  in  perfect  clearness. 
But  the  Scriptures  afford  such  satisfactory 
instruction  as  to  the  moral  needs  and  special 
privileges  of  men  in  regions  where  it  is  pos- 
sible to  verify  the  statements  by  actual 
experience,  that  we  feel  ready  to  trust  them, 
when  they  speak  of  other  matters  which 
cannot  be  at  once  submitted  to  the  test  of 
experience,  provided  always  that  nothing 
impossible  or  irrational  is  offered  for  belief. 
The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  may  be  accepted 
as  a  teaching  of  that  Book,  which  in  moral 
and  religious  matters  has  become  authori- 
tative; reflection  and  experience  may  serve 
to  make  it  satisfying  to  mind  and  heart. 

This  truth  appears  in  such  passages  of 
Scripture  as  that  where  Jesus  gave  his  fol- 
lowers the  formula  of  baptism.  They  were 
to  baptize  men  "into  the  name  of  the 
Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy 
Ghost."  At  the  baptism  of  Jesus,  the  voice 
of  the  Father  commending  his  Son  to  the 
attention  of  men,  and  the  Spirit  descending 
upon  him  as  a  dove,  embodied  the  same  tri- 
une conception.  In  the  fourth  Gospel,  Jesus 
is  represented  as  saying,  "I  will  pray  the 


56        THE   MAIN   POINTS 

Father,  and  he  shall  give  you  another  Com- 
forter." "The  Comforter,  which  is  the  Holy 
Ghost,  whom  the  Father  will  send  in  my 
name,  he  shall  teach  you  all  things."  The 
apostle  says,  "Through  him"  —  that  is, 
through  Jesus  Christ  —  "we  both  have  access 
by  one  Spirit  unto  the  Father."  And  the 
familiar  apostolic  benediction,  "The  grace 
of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  love  of 
God,  and  the  communion  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
be  with  you  all,"  brings  before  us  constantly 
the  conception  entertained  by  those  early 
Christians  regarding  the  nature  of  God. 

Shall  we  think  of  God  as  being  three  dis- 
tinct persons,  like  Abraham,  Isaac,  and 
Jacob?  This  is  the  heresy  of  tritheism. 
Shall  we  say  that  one  true  and  living  God 
manifests  himself,  now  as  Father  and  then  as 
Son  and  again  as  Holy  Spirit?  This  is  the 
heresy  of  Sabellianism.  The  forms  of  life 
with  which  we  are  familiar  do  not  afford 
adequate  illustrations.  As  we  ascend  the 
scale  of  being,  life  grows  more  complex. 
The  lowest  forms  of  life,  composed  of  single 
cells,  dividing  themselves  when  reproduction 
takes  place  and  performing  all  the  functions 
of  their  lowly  calling  in  that  single  cell, 
are  readily  understood.  A  mollusk  is  more 
elaborate,  but  its  mode  of  life  remains 


WORK  OF   HOLY   SPIRIT     57 

simple.  When  we  come  to  the  mode  of 
man's  existence  we  are  faced  by  many  an 
unsolved  mystery.  We  do  not,  therefore, 
count  it  strange  that  Jesus  indicated,  in  his 
matchless  teaching,  that  there  are  mysteri- 
ous self-relationships  and  an  infinite  rich- 
ness of  Being  in  the  nature  of  God,  baffling 
to  our  present  nomenclature  and  our  present 
discernment. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  stands  as  an 
expression  for  the  eternal  self-companion- 
ship which  God  enjoys  within  his  own  nature, 
and  for  "the  manifold  helpfulness  with 
which  he  offers  himself  to  the  world."  The 
Son  embodies  the  eternal  human  life  of  God, 
divine  in  character,  human  in  its  resem- 
blances; the  Spirit  represents  the  active,  lov- 
ing communion  between  the  Father  and 
the  Son.  "If  Christ  is  the  eternal  Son  of 
God,  God  is  indeed  and  in  essence  a  Father: 
the  social  nature,  the  spring  of  love,  is  of 
the  very  essence  of  the  eternal  being:  the 
communication  of  his  life,  the  reciproca- 
tion of  his  affection  dates  from  beyond 
time,  belongs,  in  other  words,  to  the  very 
being  of  God." 

The  picture  drawn  by  Wilberforce  is  sug- 
gestive. You  hold  in  your  hand  a  flower. 
You  find  there,  first  of  all,  that  mysterious 


58        THE   MAIN   POINTS 

thing  which  we  call  "life."  No  man  hath 
seen  "life"  at  any  time.  But  this  life  mani- 
fests itself  in  a  visible  form.  The  flower  is 
white  and  of  a  certain  shape.  Then,  pro- 
ceeding from  the  hidden  life  and  from  this 
revealing  form  of  the  flower,  is  a  fragrance 
which  fills  all  the  room  where  we  are  sitting. 
The  life,  and  the  revealed  form  of  that  life, 
and  the  invisible  fragrance  which  proceeds 
from  them,  are  three,  and  yet  there  are  not 
three  flowers,  but  one  flower.  This  is  only 
an  illustration,  and  an  imperfect  one.  We 
cannot  press  it  at  all  points,  for  even  the 
intricacies  of  flower  life  would  not  bear  the 
total  strain  of  portraying  the  divine  life. 
It  aids  us,  however,  in  our  appreciation  of 
what  the  Scriptures  mean  in  speaking  of 
one  God,  "Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Spirit." 

I  have  referred  in  this  general  way  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  as  being  an  appropri- 
ate introduction  to  the  study  of  the  work  of 
the  Holy  Spirit.  In  the  progressive  revela- 
tion the  Divine  Being  has  made  of  himself, 
one  person  reveals  another,  as  his  children 
are  educated  into  deeper  fellowship  with 
himself.  In  the  beginning  God  created  the 
heavens  and  the  earth.  "No  man  hath 
seen  God  at  any  time."  Jesus,  the  Son  of 
God,  came  revealing  him!  "This  is  my  be- 


WORK   OF   HOLY   SPIRIT     59 

loved  Son:  hear  him,"  was  the  word  of  the 
Father.  "He  that  hath  seen  me  hath  seen 
the  Father,"  was  Christ's  account  of  him- 
self. The  advent  of  the  Holy  Spirit  reveals 
the  deeper  meaning  of  the  life  and  work  of 
Christ!  "He  shall  testify  of  me,"  said 
Jesus.  "He  shall  take  the  things  of  mine 
and  show  them  unto  you."  There  came  a 
richer  understanding  of  God  the  Father, 
when  Jesus  was  born  in  Bethlehem  of  Judea; 
and  there  came  a  richer  understanding  of 
Christ  the  Son,  when  the  Holy  Spirit  entered 
the  hearts  of  believers  at  Pentecost.  The 
earlier  revelation  was  not  destroyed  but 
fulfilled.  Thus  we  are  baptized  and  initi- 
ated into  the  love  of  God,  and  the  grace  of 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  communion 
of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

When  we  read  the  Gospels  and  the  book 
of  Acts,  we  find  that  men,  who  had  believed 
in  God  the  Father  from  infancy,  who  had 
followed  Christ,  hearing  his  words,  and  feel- 
ing his  influence,  received  something  more 
as  they  came  to  the  fulness  of  religious 
privilege.  In  the  upper  room,  Jesus  breathed 
on  them,  and  said,  "Receive  ye  the  Holy 
Spirit."  He  bade  them  tarry  and  wait  for 
"the  promise  of  the  Father."  "Tarry  ye  in 
the  city  of  Jerusalem,"  —  in  the  heart  and 


60        THE   MAIN   POINTS 

center  of  the  old  dispensation,  in  the  enjoy- 
ment of  religious  experience  already  attained 
—  "until  ye  be  endued  with  power  from  on 
high." 

After  his  ascension  they  all  continued  in 
prayer  and  supplication  for  ten  days.  When 
the  day  of  Pentecost  was  fully  come,  they 
were  all  with  one  accord  in  one  place,  and 
suddenly  they  were  all  filled  with  the  Holy 
Spirit.  Something  additional  came,  a  fresh 
and  vivid  experience  of  the  presence  of  the 
Divine  Spirit.  They  became  conscious  of 
that  quickening,  transforming,  guiding,  abid- 
ing Presence  known  as  "the  Holy  Spirit." 
When  we  likewise  know  the  Father  as  re- 
vealed in  Christ,  and  follow  the  Son  in  the 
shaping  of  our  conduct,  there  comes  to  us 
the  sense  of  a  personal  Presence  dwelling 
within  our  hearts,  taking  the  things  of 
Christ,  his  words,  his  deeds,  his  life,  his 
death  and  resurrection,  and  showing  them 
unto  us.  Their  richer  meaning  is  spiritually 
revealed,  and  thus  we  are  guided  into  a 
fuller  knowledge  of  the  truth. 

In  the  Dresden  gallery,  the  "  Sistine  Ma- 
donna" hangs  in  a  room  by  itself;  no  other 
painting  is  deemed  worthy  to  share  its 
honor.  Opposite  the  picture  stands  a  bust 
of  Raphael,  as  though  he  too  had  taken  his 


WORK  OF   HOLY   SPIRIT     61 

place  among  the  visitors  to  study  his  own 
work.  Suppose  that  the  living  Raphael 
should  stand  among  the  beholders  and  inter- 
pret his  picture  to  them!  Nay,  more,  sup- 
pose that  Raphael  could  stand  within  each 
beholder,  enabling  him  to  look  upon  the 
picture  through  the  artist's  eyes  and  to 
interpret  it  by  the  spirit  of  the  artist — how 
much  each  man's  appreciation  and  under- 
standing of  the  masterpiece  would  be  in- 
creased by  such  an  interpreter  within! 

This  may  indicate  the  office  of  the  Holy 
Spirit!  What  man  knoweth  the  things  of 
art,  save  the  spirit  of  an  artist?  "What  man 
knoweth  the  things  of  a  man,  save  the  spirit 
of  man  which  is  in  him?  Even  so  the  things 
of  God  knoweth  no  man,  but  the  spirit  of 
God,"  as  he  dwells  within  the  receptive  heart 
of  the  believing  Christian. 

The  "Holy  Ghost"  is  the  Scriptural  name 
for  the  presence  of  the  Divine  Spirit  in  that 
body  of  people  who,  believing  on  Christ, 
are  seeking  to  follow  him  into  the  richer 
experiences  of  Christian  life.  This  is  appar- 
ent in  the  book  of  Acts.  "The  Holy  Ghost 
said,  Separate  me  Barnabas  and  Saul," 
when  an  extension  of  the  Church's  work  was 
proposed.  "It  seemed  good  to  the  Holy 
Ghost,  and  to  us,"  they  said,  in  rendering 


62        THE   MAIN   POINTS 

the  finding  of  a  Church  Council.  "  Why  hath 
Satan  filled  thine  heart  to  lie  to  the  Holy 
Ghost?"  said  Peter  to  Ananias,  when  he 
made  a  false  statement  to  the  Church.  It 
was  this  sense  of  a  Divine  Presence  that 
gave  the  Church  its  authority  and  power. 

The  Holy  Spirit  convinces  men  of  their 
need  of  salvation.  "When  he  is  come,  he 
will  reprove  the  world  of  sin,  and  of  right- 
eousness, and  of  judgment."  When  men 
have  been  shown  the  way  of  salvation  plainly, 
they  do  not  always  face  about  and  begin  to 
live  Christian  lives.  They  may  not  feel 
their  need  of  salvation.  The  offer  is  reason- 
able and  winsome,  but  it  meets  no  response 
on  their  part,  because  there  is  no  sense  of 
lack.  It  is  the  office  of  the  Spirit  to  con- 
vict men  of  their  need,  and  to  that  end,  his 
power  is  sought  in  the  work  of  the  Church. 

When  men  have  faced  about  and  have 
accepted  Jesus  Christ,  the  Spirit  bears  wit- 
ness with  their  spirits  that  they  are  the 
children  of  God.  When  any  one  makes  a 
sincere  attempt  to  follow  Christ,  it  is  borne 
in  upon  him  that  he  is  in  the  right  way. 
He  knows  his  acceptance  into  the  divine 
family,  not  through  some  coldly  reasoned 
process,  but  by  a  glad  sense  of  inner  warmth 
and  peace;  and  this  Spirit  within  the  heart, 


WORK   OF   HOLY   SPIRIT    63 

bestowing  the  feeling  of  worth  and  peace, 
is  one  with  the  Infinite  Spirit,  whose  work  for 
righteousness  is  from  everlasting  to  ever- 
lasting. This  "witness  of  the  Spirit"  is 
achieved,  not  apart  from  but  through  the 
exercise  of  the  mental  and  spiritual  facul- 
ties in  the  man's  own  nature.  The  sense 
of  acceptance,  which  develops  in  all  healthy 
Christian  experience,  is  the  manifestation 
of  the  presence  of  the  Spirit  in  the  individual 
soul. 

The  indwelling  presence  of  the  Spirit 
changes  the  whole  nature  of  the  believer 
progressively.  "The  love  of  God  is  shed 
abroad  in  our  hearts  by  the  Holy  Ghost, 
which  is  given  unto  us."  The  characters  of 
men  are  changed  in  some  degree  by  environ- 
ment, by  the  homes  they  live  in,  by  the  work 
they  do,  and  by  the  society  they  meet. 
They  are  changed  still  more  from  within, 
because  the  inner  state  of  mind  and  heart 
gives  to,  or  withholds  from,  the  environ- 
ment its  complete  opportunity.  The  char- 
acter is  changed  profoundly  by  the  presence 
of  the  Comforter,  the  Guide,  the  Friend, 
who  abides  with  the  believer,  leading  him 
into  all  truth  and  into  holy  life.  The  trans- 
forming power  of  the  Spirit  is  the  most 
blessed  aspect  of  his  work.  How  many 


64        THE   MAIN   POINTS 

people  know  a  warmer  love  for  God,  a  greater 
interest  in  devotion,  a  greater  compassion 
for  men,  an  increased  sympathy,  tenderness 
and  helpfulness  consequent  upon  the  indwell- 
ing presence  of  the  Spirit! 

"The  fruits  of  the  Spirit"  grow  out  of 
the  man  thus  related  to  the  divine  Energy 
with  a  glad  spontaneity.  The  life  "bears 
fruit  of  itself,"  as  Jesus  said,  we  scarce  know 
how.  "Love,  joy,  peace,  patience,  gentle- 
ness, goodness,  faithfulness,  mildness,  and 
self-control"  become  the  natural,  essential 
expression  of  the  indwelling  Spirit.  These 
gracious  qualities  come  by  indirection.  The 
life  which  bears  these  fruits  is  diffused  in 
our  hearts  by  the  Holy  Ghost. 

The  Spirit  guides  us  into  all  truth.  The 
communication  of  truth  from  God  to  men 
did  not  close  when  the  canon  of  our  Bible 
was  complete.  God  had  many  things  to 
say  unto  the  world  which  it  could  not  bear. 
The  work  of  revelation  was  limited  by  the 
material  offered  to  the  Spirit.  In  the  richer 
understanding  of  the  Scriptures,  in  the  un- 
folding history  of  the  Christian  Church,  itself 
a  process  of  revelation  under  the  tuition 
of  the  Spirit,  in  the  great  lessons  learned 
by  the  accumulation  of  Christian  experi- 
ence, as  interpreted  by  moral  reason,  the 


WORK  OF   HOLY   SPIRIT    65 

Spirit  has  been  guiding  the  world  into  a 
fuller  heritage  of  truth. 

"Revelation  is  not  only  an  eternal  possi- 
bility, but  an  eternal  necessity:  it  can  be 
limited  to  no  race,  no  time,  no  condition, 
and  to  no  phase  of  faith."  The  promise 
was  not  to  any  age  or  to  any  set  of  men, 
one  of  an  instantaneous  vision  of  all  truth, 
but  of  a  gradual,  progressive  unfolding  — 
"He  will  guide  you  into  all  truth."  We 
are  all  "confident  that  God  has  more  truth 
yet  to  break  forth  out  of  his  holy  word." 
The  total  history  of  an  ever-expanding 
Christian  experience,  and  the  richer  under- 
standing of  the  whole  divine  message,  become 
the  appointed  channel  for  this  guidance  of 
the  Spirit. 

Our  trust  for  the  future  is  in  this  holy 
guidance,  promised  to  us  in  "the  continuous 
leadership  of  the  Holy  Spirit."  Problems 
confront  us,  unsolved  as  yet  in  any  of  the 
books.  No  man  is  wise  enough  to  map  out 
the  future  movements  of  the  religious  life 
of  mankind.  The  Church  does  not  ade- 
quately represent  the  Spirit  of  Christ.  The 
Ritualist  would  make  it  a  matter  of  forms, 
rites,  and  sacraments.  There  are  clear 
thinkers,  who  would  make  it  solely  a  place 
of  intelligent,  moral  instruction.  The  Social- 


66        THE   MAIN   POINTS 

ist  would  make  it  a  place  where  economic 
questions  are  discussed  and  the  wage-earner 
aided  in  his  struggle.  It  seems  to  many  of 
us  that  the  Church  is  meant  to  be  something 
more  than  a  priest  or  a  teacher  or  a  divider 
over  men.  It  is  plain  that  if  the  Church  is 
to  be  a  power  in  the  twentieth  century,  it 
must  be  something  other  and  greater  than 
it  is  to-day.  Our  trust  is  not  in  the  clever- 
ness of  any  plans  thus  far  devised,  but, 
rather,  in  a  fuller  measure  of  that  contin- 
uous Leadership  of  the  Spirit  confidently 
promised  to  the  Church  which  is  devoted  to 
the  will  of  God. 

The  Day  of  Pentecost  was  no  mere  de- 
tached wonder,  standing  at  the  opening  of 
a  new  dispensation  to  command  attention. 
It  was  a  specimen  of  the  way  in  which  the 
powers  of  an  unseen  world  may  be  called 
to  the  aid  of  our  own  moral  forces  in  estab- 
lishing the  kingdom  of  God.  The  discour- 
aged hearts  of  men,  turning  back  from  spirit- 
ual ministry  to  their  fishing,  were  summoned 
afresh  to  noble  tasks  by  the  Risen  Christ, 
and  then  established  in  that  finer  purpose 
by  the  outpoured  Spirit.  The  tongues  which 
had  been  timid  and  denying  were  now  invig- 
orated, and  made  to  speak  the  word  with 
all  boldness,  as  the  Spirit  gave  them  utter- 


WORK   OF   HOLY   SPIRIT    67 

ance.  There  came  to  the  enfeebled  com- 
munity of  believers,  not  the  false  stimulus 
of  wine,  but  the  mighty  baptism  of  divine 
power,  which  filled  all  the  city  with  its  teach- 
ing, and  sent  forth  a  new  church  on  its 
conquering  career. 

Men  have  sought  to  change  themselves 
from  sinners  into  saints,  from  moral  dead- 
ness  into  moral  power,  by  all  manner  of 
efforts.  Baptismal  rites  and  anointings,  in- 
cantations and  magical  ceremonies,  ablu- 
tions in  sacred  rivers,  and  pilgrimages  to 
Jerusalem  or  to  Mecca,  ascetic  practices  and 
hideous  self-inflictions  have  all  been  tried 
and  found  wanting.  The  change  from  moral 
feebleness  to  moral  vigor  is  effected  by  receiv- 
ing into  the  life,  through  repentance  and 
faith,  the  very  Spirit  of  the  Living  God! 

Men  may  admire  the  example  of  Christ 
and  endorse  his  teachings;  the  form  of  god- 
liness they  may  cordially  approve,  but  remain 
all  the  while  consciously  deficient  in  the 
power  of  it.  The  spiritual  tonic  enabling 
them  to  make  progress  toward  the  ideal 
that  summons  them  will  come,  not  by  pas- 
sive waiting,  but  by  active  effort.  When 
once  they  have  turned  away  from  their 
sins,  and  offered  to  Christ  a  consecrated  life, 
the  word  of  the  Lord  is  "take."  "Take  ye 


68        THE   MAIN   POINTS 

the  Holy  Ghost,"  Jesus  said,  as  he  breathed 
on  his  disciples  in  the  upper  room.  The 
word  translated  "receive,"  in  the  ordinary 
version,  is  elsewhere  translated  "take." 
"Take  this  and  divide  it  among  yourselves," 
Jesus  said,  as  he  passed  them  the  cup.  "Take 
ye  him  and  crucify  him,"  Pilate  cried  to  the 
mob.  The  term  indicates  active,  volun- 
tary appropriation.  It  is  after  this  manner 
that  men  are  to  "take  the  Holy  Ghost." 
The  baptism  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  not  to  be 
passively  awaited,  but  actively  claimed. 
Whensoever  men  will,  they  may  "take"  the 
blessed  presence  of  Him  who  bears  witness 
to  their  salvation,  sanctifies  their  heart,  and 
guides  them  into  all  truth. 

The  vindication  of  our  belief  in  the  Holy 
Spirit  comes  by  a  deepening  Christian  experi- 
ence. To  the  natural  man,  these  truths  are 
unintelligible  mysteries.  "When  set  up  as 
independent  propositions,  they  are  often 
meaningless  or  self-contradictory.  But  to 
the  spiritual  man,  they  develop  themselves 
out  of  experience  in  doing  the  will  of  God. 
No  man  can  strive  earnestly  to  do  the  will 
of  the  Father,  without  gaining  thereby  an 
ever-increasing  reverence  for  the  divine  char- 
acter of  the  Christ,  who  revealed  the  fulness 
of  that  loving  will  as  a  world-transforming, 


WORK   OF   HOLY   SPIRIT    69 

spiritual  power,  and  for  the  divine  quality  of 
the  Spirit  in  the  hearts  of  all  our  fellows  who 
have  caught  from  Christ  an  enthusiasm  for 
the  life  of  righteousness  and  love." 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   AUTHORITY   OF   THE    BIBLE 

WE  can  understand  why  many  Chris- 
tian people  are  troubled  over  the 
work  done  by  those  scholars  who  are  called 
"higher  critics."  The  Bible  has  been  their 
lifelong  friend.  Its  familiar  stories  and 
psalms  were  taught  them  in  childhood. 
Its  parables  and  precepts  have  been  sub- 
jects of  delightful  and  rewarding  study  dur- 
ing all  the  years  of  their  maturity.  Its 
promises  and  assurances  have  been  their 
comfort  in  many  a  dark  hour  of  sorrow  and 
discouragement.  It  has  become  to  them 
"the  Book  of  books,"  not  by  any  decree  of 
council,  but  by  a  life  of  sacred  experiences. 
They  hope  to  meet  death  with  its  confident 
words  sounding  in  their  ears  the  blessed 
messages  of  hope. 

Therefore,  when  modern  scholars  under- 
take to  examine  critically  its  component 
parts,  that  they  may  arrive  at  just  and 
rational  views  as  to  the  method  of  their  pro- 
duction; when  they  try  to  estimate  the  lim- 
70 


AUTHORITY   OF   BIBLE    71 

ited  and  local  elements  mingling  with  what 
is  an  enduring  message  from  the  Eternal, 
and  in  doing  this  disturb  long-cherished 
opinions,  the  more  conservative  type  of 
mind  is  disturbed.  It  seems  ungracious,  as 
if  some  student  had  undertaken  a  critical 
examination  of  his  mother,  pointing  out  that 
the  dear  woman  suffered  from  certain  lim- 
itations and  upon  certain  occasions  had 
spoken  without  the  highest  wisdom.  The 
very  suggestion  of  such  a  discriminating 
inquiry  seems  to  certain  people  impertinent. 
We  may  sympathize  with  this  attitude  as 
a  sentiment.  It  is  more  profitable  to  have 
the  minister  use  his  strength  in  urging  upon 
his  people  the  actual  teachings  of  the  Bible, 
than  to  have  him  devote  himself  mainly 
to  a  critical  examination  of  the  process  of 
its  production.  But  if  that  dear  mother 
referred  to  had  been  set  up  as  without  fault 
or  human  imperfection;  if  the  claim  had  been 
made  that  in  all  points  she  was  infallible; 
if  her  children,  who  had  been  taught  this, 
began  to  discover  that  this  was  not  true; 
and  if  their  faith  in  her  and  in  the  whole 
system  of  holy  influences  which  she  had 
proclaimed  was  thus  seriously  impaired;  and 
if  their  discoveries  led  them  at  last  to  ques- 
tion both  the  intelligence  and  the  honesty 


72        THE   MAIN   POINTS 

of  those  who  made  such  claims,  then  it 
would  be  the  duty  of  reverent,  thoughtful, 
and  careful  men  to  come  forward  with  com- 
petent instruction.  The  time  has  come  for 
men  to  distinguish  between  that  which  is 
absolute  and  infallible,  and  that  which  may 
render  an  inestimable  service,  even  though 
it  stops  short  of  infallibility. 

The  extreme  conservative,  advancing, 
untenable  view  of  the  Bible,  becomes  one 
of  the  chief  enemies  of  the  faith.  "If  his 
view  were  simply  unscholarly,  we  might 
endure  it  by  thinking  of  something  else;  but 
it  is  the  chief  hindrance  to  faith  with  well- 
meaning  men  and  the  great  point  of  attack 
by  opponents  of  Christianity."  The  Bible, 
even  though  not  technically  infallible,  is 
beyond  all  question  the  Book  of  books,  and 
it  is  in  the  interests  of  faith,  and  of  securing 
a  larger  usefulness  for  that  book,  as  a  prac- 
tical influence  on  the  human  heart,  that 
reverent  and  thoughtful  men  are  endeavor- 
ing to  place  our  confidence  in  it  upon  foun- 
dations which  stand  sure. 

The  positive  service  which  modern  schol- 
arship has  rendered  the  Bible  is  to  be  found 
mainly  in  these  four  considerations.  It  has 
closed  the  debate  upon  certain  vexed  ques- 
tions which  once  troubled  the  heart  of  Israel, 


AUTHORITY    OF   BIBLE    73 

and  now  trouble  it  no  more,  by  relieving 
once  for  all  the  inadequate  moralities  and 
precepts  of  an  earlier  day  from  the  impos- 
sible task  of  doing  duty  as  permanent 
standards. 

It  has  served  to  correlate  Bible  study  with 
all  other  study  by  its  frank  acceptance  of 
the  principle  of  growth.  The  earth  grew, 
languages  grow,  institutions  grow  —  each 
one  of  these  mighty  trees,  with  branches 
now  innumerable,  was  once  a  grain  of  mus- 
tard seed.  And  in  similar  fashion  the  Bible 
grew. 

It  has  added  immeasurably  to  the  human 
interest  of  the  book  by  bringing  out  more 
clearly  the  fact  that  the  Bible  was  not 
dropped  down  from  the  sky  to  become  the 
priceless  heritage  of  the  race,  but  was  slowly 
wrought  into  the  experiences  of  real  men  as 
they,  too,  faced  duty,  grappled  with  temp- 
tation, knew  the  guilt  of  wrong-doing,  and, 
through  divine  help,  entered  into  the  joy  of 
spiritual  deliverance. 

The  modern  method  of  Bible  study,  by 
its  more  accurate  appraisement  of  the  orig- 
inal documents,  has  also  increased  that 
sense  of  perspective  which  aids  us  in  offering 
to  the  world  with  scriptural  sanction  those 
moral  and  religious  judgments  which  the 


74        THE    MAIN   POINTS 

best  reason  and  the  best  conscience  of  the 
age  approve.  It  has  also  helped  us  to  lay 
aside,  with  direct  scriptural  warrant,  certain 
theological  views,  which  have  become  more 
or  less  discredited  on  philosophical  grounds, 
thus  linking  the  real  teaching  of  the  Bible 
with  that  cancellation  of  the  inadequate 
wrought  by  development. 

The  fact  that  this  work  is  being  done  by 
Christian  men  is  full  of  encouragement. 
Confused  souls  that  had  wandered  into  a  far 
country  of  doubt,  into  a  region  entirely 
apart  from  any  genuine  faith  in  the  Bible, 
are  being  brought  home  by  that  "natural 
and  discriminating  criticism  of  the  Old 
Testament  to  which  Christ  himself  has  shown 
us  the  way  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount." 

The  very  facts  which  are  being  brought 
to  the  attention  of  the  churches  by  construc- 
tive Christian  scholars  were  once  brought 
out  with  a  great  flourish  by  Thomas  Paine 
and  by  Robert  G.  Ingersoll,  as  being  death- 
blows to  Christian  faith.  They  did  it  bit- 
terly and  sneeringly,  for  their  aim  was  to 
destroy.  It  was  an  easy  task  for  any  clever 
mind  to  triumph  over  the  belief  in  the  equal 
and  absolute  inspiration  of  every  part  of 
the  Bible.  In  a  once  popular  lecture  on 
"God  and  His  Book,"  certain  passages 


AUTHORITY   OF   BIBLE    75 

cleverly  culled  from  the  Old  Testament  made 
it  seem  as  if  the  God  we  worship  was  not  a 
righteous  being.  Modern  scholarship  has 
made  this  line  of  attack  impossible.  If 
such  notions  were  advanced  to-day  it  would 
be  so  plain  that  they  were  directed  at  a  man 
of  straw  rather  than  at  any  live  figure  of 
religious  faith,  as  to  rob  them  of  any  dis- 
turbing force. 

The  claim  has  been  made  that  the  Bible 
is  in  every  part  the  infallible  word  of  God; 
that  these  words  are  His  words  as  truly  as 
though  He  had  spoken  them  with  his  own 
mouth  or  written  them  with  His  own  hand; 
that  His  having  dictated  them  to  inspired 
men  is  what  gives  them  their  authority. 

This  view  is  untenable,  as  any  one  can 
see  who  reads  the  Bible  without  evading  the 
facts.  It  rests  upon  an  outside  theory,  rather 
than  upon  anything  the  Bible  says  about 
itself.  The  passage  often  quoted  in  support 
of  it  means,  simply,  according  to  the  better 
rendering  in  the  Revised  Version,  that 
"Every  Scripture  inspired  of  God  is  also 
profitable  for  teaching,  for  reproof,  for  cor- 
rection, for  instruction  which  is  in  righteous- 
ness :  that  the  man  of  God  may  be  complete, 
furnished  completely  unto  every  good  work." 
The  writer  is  not  attempting  to  pass  upon  the 


76        THE   MAIN   POINTS 

infallible  inspiration  of  this  entire  body  of 
writings  —  he  could  not  do  that,  for  some  of 
them  were  not  then  in  existence.  He  is  not 
setting  the  seal  of  inspiration  even  upon 
that  portion  of  the  New  Testament  writings 
which  had  been  written,  for  no  authorita- 
tive collection  had  then  been  made.  He  is 
simply  stating  that  all  writings  which  are 
given  by  inspiration  of  God  are  profitable. 
He  is  indicating  the  spiritual  edification  to 
be  gained  from  any  writing  "inspired  of 
God." 

The  claim  of  infallibility  and  finality  is 
sometimes  made  to  rest  upon  the  closing 
verses  of  the  book  of  Revelation.  "If  any 
man  shall  add  unto  these  things,  God  shall 
add  unto  him  the  plagues  that  are  written 
in  this  book:  and  if  any  man  shall  take  away 
from  the  words  of  the  book  of  this  proph- 
ecy, God  shall  take  away  his  part  out  of 
the  book  of  life."  But  as  considerable 
portions  of  the  New  Testament  were  com- 
posed after  these  words  were  written,  and 
as  no  recognized  collection  had  been  made 
during  the  lifetime  of  the  author  of  them, 
he  certainly  was  not  seeking  to  set  a  defen- 
sive seal  on  all  the  Bible  or  on  the  New 
Testament,  but  evidently  had  in  mind  simply 
the  protection  from  mutilation  or  addition 


AUTHORITY  OF   BIBLE    77 

of  the  single  book  of  Revelation  which  he 
himself  had  just  written. 

If  we  turn  to  the  plain  facts  we  discover 
how  impossible  is  the  claim  of  infallibility. 
In  his  twenty-seventh  chapter  Matthew 
quotes  a  verse  from  the  Old  Testament  and 
states  that  it  is  from  "Jeremy  the  prophet." 
But  it  is  not  found  in  Jeremiah;  it  is  in  the 
eleventh  chapter  of  Zechariah.  Matthew, 
quoting  from  memory  with  no  manuscript 
copy  of  the  Old  Testament  beside  him  — 
such  manuscripts  being  at  that  time  heavy, 
cumbersome,  and  expensive — made  a  slip. 
Mark,  in  his  second  chapter,  refers  to  some- 
thing that  David  did,  as  he  states,  "in  the 
days  of  Abiathar  the  high  priest."  When 
we  turn  to  the  account  of  the  event  in  First 
Samuel,  however,  we  find  that  Ahimelech 
was  high  priest.  Paul,  in  the  tenth  chapter 
of  First  Corinthians,  refers  to  a  certain 
slaughter  of  Israelites  and  states  that  there 
"fell  in  one  day  three  and  twenty  thousand." 
When  we  turn  to  the  twenty-fifth  chapter 
of  Numbers,  where  the  occurrence  is  re- 
corded, we  find  the  number  given  as  "twenty 
and  four  thousand." 

The  report  as  to  the  inscription  placed 
upon  the  cross  of  Christ  is  significant.  We 
might  suppose  that  the  sacred  importance 


78        THE   MAIN   POINTS 

of  the  occasion,  the  fewness  of  the  words, 
and  the  threefold  repetition  of  them  in 
Hebrew,  Greek,  and  Latin  would  have  so 
fixed  them  in  the  minds  of  those  who  saw 
them  that  there  would  have  been  no  dis- 
crepancy in  the  accounts.  Mark  says  the 
inscription  was  "The  King  of  the  Jews." 
Luke  says  it  read,  "This  is  the  King  of  the 
Jews."  Matthew  records  it,  "This  is  Jesus, 
the  King  of  the  Jews."  And  John  gives  it, 
"Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  King  of  the  Jews." 
The  general  idea  in  all  is  the  same,  but  the 
wording  is  different  in  each  of  the  four 
records.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  inscrip- 
tion contained  certain  words  and  no  others; 
and  three  of  the  four  cannot  be  exact  reports. 
Such  variations  do  not  affect  the  real 
value  of  the  Bible,  but  they  show  conclu- 
sively that  the  claim  of  infallibility  is  not 
founded  upon  fact.  Infallibility  means  free- 
dom from  all  error  or  disagreement,  and  not 
merely  a  high  degree  of  accuracy  which 
approximates  perfection.  "The  Scriptures 
never  claim  absolute  accuracy  for  all  their 
statements  or  in  any  way  ask  us  to  expect 
it  from  them;  and  careful  reading  is  sufficient 
to  show  that  accuracy  has  not  been 
attempted.  There  are  frequent  divergences 
between  parallel  narratives,  as  in  Kings  and 


AUTHORITY  OF   BIBLE    79 

Chronicles  and  in  the  four  Gospels."1  The 
assumption  that  inspired  men  were  lifted 
to  the  point  where  their  very  words  were 
chosen  for  them  by  the  Holy  Ghost  stands 
disproved  in  these  divergences,  which  could 
not  have  occurred  had  the  utterances  been 
divinely  dictated.  > 

The  claim  is  made  that  if  the  words  were 
not  dictated,  if  slips  of  memory  did  occa- 
sionally creep  in,  still  the  message  itself 
represented  infallibly  the  mind  of  God. 
The  facts  do  not  warrant  this  assumption. 
The  inspired  man  is  not  always  one  and  the 
same  thing,  any  more  than  the  educated 
man  is  always  a  man  possessed  of  just  such 
a  degree  of  wisdom.  Inspiration  results 
from  the  inbreathing  of  the  Spirit  of  God, 
and  this  varies  according  to  the  receptivity 
of  the  man.  The  original  apostles  were 
surely  inspired  men,  but  "it  is  certain  that 
the  inspiration  vouchsafed  them  did  not 
make  them  infallible  in  their  ordinary 
teaching  or  in  their  administration  of  the 
Church.  They  made  mistakes  of  a  very 
serious  nature.  It  is  beyond  question  that 
a  majority  of  the  apostles  took  at  the 
beginning  an  erroneous  view  of  the  rela- 
tion of  the  Gentiles  to  the  Christian 

1  Clark,  "Outline  of  Christian  Theology,"  page  35. 


8o        THE   MAIN   POINTS 

Church.  They  insisted  that  Gentiles  must 
first  become  Jews  before  they  could  become 
Christians;  that  the  only  way  into  the 
Christian  Church  was  through  the  synagogue 
and  the  temple.  It  was  a  grievous  and  rad- 
ical error;  it  struck  at  the  foundations  of 
Christian  faith.  And  this  error  was  enter- 
tained by  these  inspired  apostles  after  the 
day  of  Pentecost;  it  influenced  their  teach- 
ing; it  led  them  to  proclaim  a  defective  gos- 
pel. This  is  not  the  assertion  of  a  skeptic, 
it  is  the  clear  testimony  of  the  Apostle  Paul, 
as  we  find  on  reading  the  second  chapter  of 
his  letter  to  the  Galatians."  1 

When  we  examine  what  certain  Bible  writers 
actually  said,  we  find  this  view  of  the  incom- 
pleteness of  their  knowledge  borne  out  by 
the  record.  Jesus  himself  set  the  example 
for  reverent  scrutiny  of  the  sayings  of  "them 
of  old  time."  To  Moses  was  attributed  a 
certain  law  of  divorce.  If  a  man  married  a 
wife  and  she  found  no  favor  in  his  eyes,  he 
could  give  her  a  writing  and  send  her  away 
and  marry  another.  But  Jesus  said  frankly 
that  this  was  wrong.  "Moses  gave  you 
that  law  on  account  of  the  hardness  of  your 
hearts "  —  on  account  of  the  low  state  of 
morality  at  that  time.  It  was  an  advance 

1  Washington  Gladden,  "Who  wrote  the  Bible,"  page  IKX 


AUTHORITY   OF   BIBLE    81 

on  the  polygamy  and  the  irregular  unions 
with  which  the  Israelites  had  been  familiar, 
but  it  was  not  the  will  of  God  touching 
marriage.  In  place  of  this  temporary  pro- 
vision Jesus  named  those  principles  which 
place  the  whole  relation  of  husband  and  wife 
on  a  holier  foundation. 

Jesus  quoted  from  the  Old  Testament, 
"Ye  have  heard  that  it  hath  been  said,  An 
eye  for  an  eye,  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth." 
This  law  when  it  was  given  was  not  ideal, 
but  it  represented  moral  advance, —  an  eye 
for  an  eye  was  better  than  a  head  for  an  eye; 
measured  and  limited  retaliation  was  an 
improvement  upon  unrestrained  vengeance. 
But  in  place  of  this  grim  law  of  retaliation 
Jesus  gave  his  command  about  overcoming 
evil  with  good.  "Ye  have  heard  that  it 
hath  been  said,  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neigh- 
bor, and  hate  thine  enemy.  But  I  say  unto 
you,  Love  your  enemies,  bless  them  that 
curse  you,  do  good  to  them  that  hate  you, 
and  pray  for  them  which  despitefully  use 
you  and  persecute  you;  that  ye  may  be 
the  children  of  your  Father  which  is  in 
heaven."  Jesus  set  aside  whole  sections  of 
Old  Testament  teaching  as  not  portraying 
the  mind  of  God. 

We  are  pursuing  the  same  method.    We 


82        THE   MAIN   POINTS 

compare  all  Scriptural  teaching  with  the 
mind  of  Christ  and  we  discount  what  does 
not  accord  with  his  words.  In  the  one 
hundred  and  ninth  Psalm  the  author  prays 
that  his  enemy  may  die  and  "his  children 
be  fatherless,  and  his  wife  a  widow;  that  his 
children  may  be  continually  vagabonds  and 
beg;  that  they  may  seek  their  bread  in  deso- 
late places;  that  none  may  extend  mercy 
to  him  or  favor  to  his  fatherless  children; 
that  his  prayer  may  be  counted  as  sin  and 
the  sin  of  his  mother  may  not  be  blotted 
out."  No  Christian  would  dare  to  kneel 
before  God  and  pray  in  that  fashion  touch- 
ing the  wickedest  man  alive.  The  prayer 
of  the  man  who  wrote  that  Psalm  does  not 
conform  to  the  mind  of  Christ  and  we  quietly 
set  it  aside. 

In  the  book  of  Ecclesiastes  the  pessimist 
utters  his  wail  of  despair:  "For  that  which 
befalleth  the  sons  of  men  befalleth  beasts; 
even  one  thing  befalleth  them:  as  the  one 
dieth,  so  dieth  the  other;  yea,  they  have 
all  one  breath;  so  that  a  man  has  no  pre- 
eminence above  a  beast:  ...  all  are  of 
the  dust,  and  all  turn  to  dust  again."  "The 
living  know  that  they  shall  die:  but  the  dead 
know  not  anything,  neither  have  they  any 
more  a  reward.  .  .  .  For  there  is  no  work, 


AUTHORITY   OF   BIBLE    83 

nor  device,  nor  knowledge,  nor  wisdom,  in 
the  grave,  whither  thou  goest."  Here  is  as 
flat  a  denial  of  the  claim  that  God  has  made 
us  "a  little  lower  than  the  angels,"  and  that 
if  we  believe  in  him  we  "shall  never  die," 
as  might  be  found  on  the  lips  of  an  infidel. 
We  know,  however,  that  this  was  the  writ- 
ing of  a  skeptical,  pessimistic,  unbelieving 
man,  and  we  never  think  of  accepting  it 
as  an  authoritative  statement  as  to  human 
destiny. 

In  First  Corinthians  the  apostle  states 
that  in  his  judgment  it  is  better  for  a  man 
to  remain  single;  that  it  is  better  for  a 
father  not  \o  allow  his  daughter  to  marry. 
He  coarsely  suggests  that  marriage  at  best 
is  a  kind  of  concession  to  human  weakness 
— "If  they  cannot  contain,  let  them  marry; 
for  it  is  better  to  marry  than  to  burn."  He 
urges  as  his  reason  for  this  counsel  that 
domestic  life  interferes  with  serving  God. 
"He  that  is  unmarried  careth  for  the  things 
that  belong  to  the  Lord,  how  he  may  please 
the  Lord;  but  he  that  is  married  careth  for 
the  things  that  are  of  the  world,  how  he 
may  please  his  wife." 

We  do  not  accept  that  as  authoritative 
teaching!  We  marry  in  fulfilment  of  the 
divine  purpose,  invoking  upon  our  unions 


84        THE   MAIN   POINTS 

the  blessing  of  God.  We  are  glad  to  see 
our  children  wisely  and  happily  married. 
We  believe  that  men  and  women  serve  God 
more  acceptably  by  establishing  homes  and 
becoming  fathers  and  mothers  of  believing 
families.  Paul's  hard  words  about  mar- 
riage are  in  disagreement  with  sacred  and 
elemental  human  instincts  implanted  by  the 
Creator  for  holy  ends,  and  they  are  out  of 
line  with  the  mind  of  Christ.  Jesus  indi- 
cated his  purpose  and  wish  for  men  when  he 
said,  "For  this  cause  shall  a  man  leave 
father  and  mother,  and  cleave  to  his  wife: 
and  they  twain  shall  be  one  flesh."  What 
therefore  God  in  his  purpose  hath  joined 
together  let  no  man,  in  the  supposed  inter- 
ests of  the  unworldliness  of  celibacy,  put 
asunder. 

These  passages  are  cited  to  show  how,  in 
forming  a  code  for  our  governance  from  the 
Scriptures,  the  mind  of  Christ  is  the  final 
standard.  "It  is  the  spirit  of  the  Bible 
reaching  complete  expression  in  the  person, 
teachings,  work,  and  sacrifice  of  Christ 
that  is  becoming  the  rule  of  Christian  faith 
and  practise,  displacing  the  rule  of  that 
literalism  which,  by  giving  equal  authority 
to  all  parts  of  Scripture,  neutralized  in  so 
large  degree  the  authority  of  Scripture  as  a 


AUTHORITY   OF   BIBLE    85 

whole."  By  this  practical  attitude  we  refuse 
assent  to  the  claim  that  infallibility  Belongs 
to  every  portion  of  the  Scriptures. 

If  the  writers  of  these  documents  had 
been  infallibly  inspired,  then  the  original 
Hebrew  and  Greek  manuscripts  would  have 
contained  the  veritable  words  of  God.  But 
we  have  none  of  these.  We  have  copies, 
and  the  various  copies  on  hand  do  not  always 
agree.  Scholars  tell  us  that,  in  all,  over 
one  hundred  thousand  variations  occur  in 
the  oldest  and  best  manuscripts  we  have  — 
variations  which  crept  in  from  time  to  time 
through  the  process  of  transcribing  these 
sacred  writings. 

These  differences  are  not  always  trifling. 
The  first  eleven  verses  of  the  eighth  chapter 
of  John  and  the  last  twelve  verses  of  the 
sixteenth  chapter  of  Mark  are  entirely 
omitted  from  the  best  manuscripts.  We 
would  be  forced  to  ask  which  one  of  these 
many  copies  is  the  infallible  one  or  which 
among  the  many  variations  in  the  readings 
is  to  be  received  as  the  exact  word  of  the 
Spirit.  No  sure  reply  could  be  made. 

Furthermore,  the  common  people  do  not 
read  even  these  copies  in  the  original  —  they 
read  translations.  The  translators  never 
claimed  to  be  infallibly  inspired  in  rendering 


86        THE   MAIN   POINTS 

Hebrew  and  Greek  into  English.  They  used 
their  best  scholarship,  but  wise  and  good 
men  often  differed  as  to  the  exact  meaning 
of  certain  phrases.  When  the  Revised  Ver- 
sion was  made,  we  saw  that  questions  had 
to  be  determined  sometimes  by  majority 
vote.  Among  the  varying  opinions  as  to 
what  should  be  the  English  equivalent  of 
some  ancient  phrase,  which  one  should  we 
select  now  as  the  infallible  rendering?  It 
would  require  the  gift  of  infallible  inspira- 
tion to  decide. 

And  furthermore,  we  should  need  infal- 
lible interpreters,  inasmuch  as  the  real 
meaning  of  the  English  passage  must  be 
brought  out  before  we  can  deal  with  it 
practically.  We  should  here  again  be  left 
without  infallibility,  as  no  special  school  of 
interpreters  has  ever  claimed  to  have  the 
gift  of  infallibility. 

This  claim  of  infallibility  for  the  Scrip- 
tures was  never  made  until  the  fourth  cen- 
tury. It  has  been  disputed  through  all 
the  history  of  the  Church.  Martin  Luther, 
who  first  gave  direction  to  Protestant 
thought,  did  not  hold  to  it.  It  will  not 
bear  scrutiny.  The  making  of  such  a  claim 
leads  to  evasion  of  the  facts,  to  playing  fast 
and  loose  with  the  simple  truth.  It  has 


AUTHORITY   OF   BIBLE    87 

induced  unbelief  much  more  than  it  has  stim- 
ulated faith. 

The  Bible  is  the  record  of  the  progressive 
revelation  which  God  has  made  of  himself 
through  the  religious  experiences  of  a  chosen 
people.  It  is  the  "record"  of  a  process 
conducted  by  the  Spirit  of  God.  The  rec- 
ord contains  history,  biography,  poetry, 
drama,  song,  sermons,  letters,  and  other 
forms  of  literature,  because  they  all  throw 
light  on  the  spiritual  experiences  of  the 
chosen  people. 

It  deals  with  a  "progressive  revelation," 
for  God  spoke  as  men  were  able  to  hear. 
He  revealed  himself  more  fully  as  they  made 
moral  advance.  Revelation  was  an  educa- 
tional process,  and  from  the  nature  of  the 
case  had  to  be  progressive.  We  are  not 
surprised  that  Moses  did  not  have  the  moral 
insight  of  John,  nor  that  the  author  of 
Ecclesiastes  failed  to  see  the  truth  of  immor- 
tality as  Paul  saw  it  when  he  wrote  First 
Corinthians.  The  author  of  the  one  hun- 
dred and  ninth  Psalm,  praying  his  bitter 
prayer  and  calling  down  misfortunes  on  the 
widow  and  orphans,  had  not  advanced  to 
where  James  stood  when  he  defined  "pure 
religion  and  undefiled"  as  visiting  the  father- 
less and  the  widow  in  their  affliction  and 


88        THE   MAIN   POINTS 

keeping  one's  self  unspotted  from  the  world. 
There  is  progress  here  because  the  Bible 
was  given,  not  by  having  its  words  mechan- 
ically dropped  from  heaven,  as  if  by  dic- 
tation, but  by  being  wrought  into  the  moral 
experiences  of  men  by  the  Spirit  of  God. 
The  Old  Testament  especially  "gives  evi- 
dence of  a  gradual  discovery  of  God  on  the 
part  of  men,  which  is  accounted  for  in  the 
record  and  can  be  best  explained  in  fact 
by  a  deliberate  and  gracious  self-revealing 
on  the  part  of  God." 

The  revelation  was  made  through  a  long 
and  varied  course  of  religious  experience. 
"Not  in  writing,  but  in  living  history,  in 
actual  life  God  shows  himself  to  men."  By 
what  he  did  for  those  who  trusted  and  obeyed 
him,  he  became  known. 

It  was  accomplished  through  a  "chosen 
people."  However  it  came  about,  the 
Hebrews  were  by  original  constitution 
strong  on  the  religious  side,  as  the  Greeks 
were  strong  in  philosophy  and  art,  the 
Romans  in  law  and  government,  and  the 
English  in  commerce  and  administration. 
God  chose  them  to  make  their  character- 
istic contribution  to  the  total  life  of  the 
world  through  their  religion.  He  increased 
their  original  five  talents  by  providential 


AUTHORITY   OF   BIBLE    89 

experiences,  by  the  work  of  the  Spirit  in 
the  hearts  of  their  leaders,  and  by  that  gra- 
cious unveiling  of  himself  to  their  aspiring 
gaze,  which  culminated  at  last  in  sending 
his  Son  to  be  born  in  Bethlehem  of  Judea. 

This  definition  of  the  Bible,  not  original 
with  me,  but  summarized  from  the  expres- 
sions of  many  scholars,  seems  to  cover  the 
ground.  The  Bible  is  a  record  of  the  pro- 
gressive revelation  which  God  has  made  of 
himself  through  the  religious  experiences 
of  a  chosen  people.  This  does  not  assume 
infallibility  —  there  have  been  slips  of  mem- 
ory, errors  in  copying,  incompleteness  of 
view,  limitations  indicating  failure  to  per- 
fectly apprehend  the  mind  of  Christ  as  it 
stands  at  last  revealed  in  the  Gospels. 
"The  free  and  natural  method  of  the  Bible 
has  opened  actual  experience  to  our  sight 
and  gives  us  the  divine  realities  in  human 
life  in  all  their  freshness  and  power,  and  this 
quality  of  livingness  is  worth  more  to  us 
than  what  we  call  inerrancy  would  be." 

But  this  definition  of  the  Bible  does  assert 
that  the  Scriptures  contain  a  veritable  reve- 
lation from  God.  It  asserts  for  the  Bible 
substantial  authority  in  that  any  man  may 
find  there  such  light  and  guidance  as  will 
enable  him  intelligently  to  worship,  as  will 


90        THE   MAIN   POINTS 

put  him  in  the  way  of  receiving  unutterable 
help,  as  will  enable  him  to  shape  his  con- 
duct in  glad  conformity  with  the  will  of 
God. 

The  man  who  holds  this  view  of  the  Bible 
reads  his  way  through  mistakes  and  varia- 
tions; through  imperfections  of  moral  insight 
standing  on  a  lower  level  than  the  mind  of 
Christ;  and  in  it  all  he  is  undisturbed.  He 
judges  the  Bible,  not  by  single  separate 
statements,  as  the  claim  of  infallibility  would 
compel  us  to  do;  he  judges  it  by  its  trend 
and  drift,  by  its  useful  message  to  man,  and 
by  the  conclusions  to  which  it  brings  us. 

This  view  provides  for  progress  in  revela- 
tion and  rejoices  in  studying  the  gradual- 
ness  with  which  men  came  to  understand  the 
mind  of  God.  The  immoralities  of  Samson; 
the  cruel  treachery  and  lying  of  Jael,  which 
are  frankly  praised;  the  skepticism  of  the 
author  of  Ecclesiastes;  and  the  immoral, 
or  at  least  unmoral,  atmosphere  of  the 
book  of  Esther,  are  all  acknowledged  as 
being  the  utterance  of  earnest  men  speaking 
the  best  they  knew,  but  not  embodying  the 
pure  thought  of  the  Father.  "These  writ- 
ings, when  they  were  composed,  were  at  the 
front  of  the  religious  life  of  their  time  and 
led  it  forward,"  but  they  are  to  be  judged 


today  in  the  fuller  light  that  has  come  to  us 
by  our  knowledge  of  the  mind  of  Christ. 

This  view  finds  the  authority  of  the  Bible, 
therefore,  not  in  some  theory  erected  about 
it  from  without,  but  in  the  actual  verities  it 
contains.  Its  authority  rests  upon  "its  abil- 
ity to  hold  before  the  minds  and  hearts  of 
men  a  picture  of  God,  of  man,  and  of  their 
mutual  relations,  which  reason,  conscience, 
and  affection  approve  as  true."  By  its 
authority  we  mean  "the  right  which  the 
highest  moral  and  religious  truth  has  to 
satisfy  the  reason  and  to  bind  the  conscience 
of  man."  The  Bible  does  this,  and  pos- 
sesses its  authority  by  virtue  of  what  it  can 
do  for  the  moral  life  of  men. 

The  solemn  contention  that  "we  must 
accept  it  all  or  reject  it  all"  is  foolish  and 
wicked.  We  have  been  seriously  told  that 
if  men  are  led  to  doubt  a  single  statement 
in  it,  they  cannot  depend  on  any  of  it.  The 
folly  of  such  an  assumption  is  instantly 
apparent.  Here  is  a  man  who  for  twenty 
years  has  taught  the  truths  of  religion  from 
a  certain  pulpit.  Thousands  of  people  have 
listened  to  him.  They  brought  their  chil- 
dren and  urged  them  to  listen  attentively. 
Was  this  preacher  infallible?  No  one  ever 
thought  of  making  such  a  claim.  He  would 


92        THE   MAIN   POINTS 

have  been  the  first  to  repudiate  it.  He  would 
not  have  called  himself  an  inspired  man, 
though  the  Holy  Spirit  helped  him  to  preach 
his  sermons  and  live  his  life.  But  if,  in 
attempting  to  quote,  as  he  said,  from  Zech- 
ariah,  he  had  uttered  a  verse  from  Jeremiah; 
if  in  giving  statistics  he  had  named  twenty- 
three  thousand  as  the  number  of  men  slain 
upon  a  certain  occasion,  when  really  twenty- 
four  thousand  were  killed;  if  in  citing  an 
event  of  history  as  occurring  in  the  admin- 
istration of  John  Adams,  he  had  mistaken 
that  for  the  administration  of  Jefferson;  if 
some  of  his  scientific  statements  had  been 
invalidated  by  later  discoveries,  would  that 
fact  discredit  all  his  teaching?  Would  any 
sane  man  say  to  his  children,  "If  this 
teacher  has  ever  made  a  slip  in  memory,  or 
has  not  been  perfect  in  his  scientific  knowl- 
edge, we  cannot  go  and  hear  him;  his  moral 
and  spiritual  value  is  destroyed.  We  must 
accept  all  or  reject  all." 

The  foolishness  of  such  an  attitude  would 
make  it  impossible.  His  teaching  during 
all  those  years  may  have  been  taken  in  the 
main  from  the  Bible,  but  it  was  his  own 
interpretation  and  understanding  of  the 
Bible.  He  was  neither  infallible  as  a  stu- 
dent nor  as  an  interpreter,  yet  men  may 


AUTHORITY  OF   BIBLE    93 

feel  confident  that  if  all  who  came  into  his 
church  during  those  twenty  years  had  gone 
out  to  practise  the  precepts  he  gave  them, 
they  would  have  been  led  safely  in  the  way 
of  righteousness. 

There  can  be  worth,  truth,  and  authority, 
great,  splendid,  and  useful,  without  infalli- 
bility. The  Catholics  feel  that  unless  the 
Church  is  infallible  she  cannot  teach  the  peo- 
ple. Many  Protestants  feel  likewise  —  that 
unless  the  Bible  is  infallible  it  cannot  teach 
the  people.  Both  are  wrong;  God  alone  is 
infallible,  and  neither  the  Church  nor  the 
Bible  is  God.  But  both  Church  and  Bible 
can  teach  with  authority  and  helpfulness 
if  the  moral  conclusions  which  are  reached 
through  this  revelation  made  by  God, 
through  the  religious  experiences  of  a  chosen 
people,  show  themselves  valid  as  tested  by 
human  experience. 

We  are  told  that  it  is  dangerous  to  allow 
men  thus  to  read  the  Scriptures  and  make 
discriminations,  deciding  that  this  passage 
is  the  absolute  truth  of  God  and  the  other 
is  due  to  the  human  limitations  of  the  writer. 
But  men  have  never  been  relieved  from  the 
peril  of  making  just  such  decisions.  Men, 
of  like  passions  with  us  and  enjoying  only 
such  guidance  as  is  now  open  to  us.  have 


94        THE   MAIN   POINTS 

made  many  such  vital  decisions.  Men  had 
to  choose  what  books  should  go  into  the 
collection  and  what  ones  should  be  left  out. 
Questions  arose.  The  "  Epistle  of  Barnabas  " 
was  regarded  by  Clement  of  Alexandria 
and  by  Origen  as  being  inspired  Scripture. 
Barnabas  is  named  with  Paul  in  the  Book 
of  Acts  as  an  apostle,  and  is  described  as 
;a  good  man,  and  full  of  the  Holy  Ghost." 
The  oldest  manuscript  we  have  of  the  Bible, 
the  Sinaiticus,  found  by  Tischendorf  in 
1859,  in  the  convent  near  Mt.  Sinai,  contains 
this  epistle  of  Barnabas.  But  even  in  the 
face  of  such  claims  men  decided,  upon  what 
seemed  to  them  sufficient  grounds,  to  leave 
it  out  of  the  canonical  Scriptures.  Other 
books,  which  to  some  minds  have  less  claim 
to  inspiration,  were  allowed  to  stand  within 
the  canon. 

In  giving  us  an  authorized  edition  of  the 
Scriptures,  men  have  had  to  decide,  from 
the  varying  copies,  which  reading  should 
be  accepted.  Men  have  had  to  weigh 
opposing  considerations  in  making  transla- 
tions. Wise  and  good  men  have  differed  and 
certain  decisions  have  been  made  by  the 
weight  of  a  majority  vote. 

It  does  not  seem  to  have  been  the  divine 
purpose  to  relieve  men  from  the  responsi- 


/AUTHORITY  OF   BIBLE    95 

bility  and  the  peril  of  deciding  vital  ques- 
tions of  faith.  Young  people  and  older 
people  should  be  given  sound,  wholesome 
principles  of  judgment,  and  then  bidden  to 
do  their  Protestant  duty  of  reading  their 
Bibles  for  themselves.  There  is  no  place 
where  men  are  relieved  from  the  responsi- 
bility of  such  decisions  except  in  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church,  and  even  there  at  the  out- 
set every  man  must  make  for  himself  the 
momentous  decision  that  the  Pope  is  infal- 
lible, and  that  he  is  therefore  warranted  in 
committing  all  questions  of  faith  and  morals 
to  the  papal  judgment. 

Making  discriminations  in  a  book  of 
Scripture  no  longer  regarded  as  infallible  in 
every  point,  but  as  being  the  record  of  a 
progressive  revelation  of  divine  truth,  may 
be  attended  with  risk,  but  life  must  be  lived 
in  the  midst  of  such  perils.  Every  man  must 
decide  many  points  for  himself,  with  the 
best  light  obtainable,  but  at  his  own  risk. 
There  is  no  way  of  making  life  a  personally 
conducted  tour,  where  one  may  resign  his 
individual  responsibility  to  church  or  priest, 
to  creed  or  book,  thus  relieving  himself  from 
the  task  of  making  decisions. 

The  Bible  finds  the  great  vindication  of 
its  authority  in  human  experience.  Men 


96        THE   MAIN   POINTS 

hold  fast  to  it  because  of  what  it  has  wrought 
in  the  realm  of  Christian  life.  "It  is  not 
important  that  the  Bible  should  be  verbally 
inspired  and  technically  infallible;  but  it  is 
important  that  men  should  find  God  in  it 
and  through  it.  And  that  God  can  be  thus 
found  even  without  profound  learning  and 
critical  apparatus  is  the  concurrent  testi- 
mony of  the  saints  of  all  ages."  The  spirit- 
ual fruitage  of  the  careful  study  of  these 
pages,  which  is  beyond  all  gainsaying,  stands 
fast  as  an  actual  demonstration  of  the  true 
inspiration  which  entered  into  the  produc- 
tion of  them. 

"You  go  to  the  Mammoth  Cave  in  Ken- 
tucky. You  take  a  guide,  perhaps  Stephen, 
an  ignorant  colored  man,  formerly  a  slave. 
You  know  nothing  of  him  but  this,  that  he 
has  guided  hundreds  of  travelers  before  you, 
and  has  guided  them  safely.  You  enter  the 
mysterious  passages.  You  pass  from  one 
chamber  to  another.  Passages  diverge  in 
all  directions;  still  you  follow  through  the 
great  darkness  the  feeble  lamp  of  your  guide. 
You  descend  precipices,  you  climb  ladders, 
you  come  to  a  river,  and  cross  it  in  a  boat 
beneath  an  overhanging  roof  of  rock.  You 
go  on,  mile  after  mile,  until  you  seem  to 
have  left  forever  the  day  and  the  upper  air. 


AUTHORITY  OF   BIBLE    97 

Immense  darkness,  perpetual  night,  undis- 
turbed silence  brood  around.  You  are  miles 
from  the  entrance;  if  your  guide  has  made 
any  mistake,  you  are  lost. 

"But  you  follow  him  with  entire  confi- 
dence. Why?  Do  you  believe  him  to  be 
plenarily  inspired?  Do  you  think  him  infal- 
lible? Not  at  all.  But  you  trust  in  his 
long  experience.  He  has  guided  travelers 
safely  for  years  and  that  is  enough.  So  the 
Bible  has  guided  the  footsteps  of  travelers 
seeking  truth  and  God.  It  has  brought  gen- 
eration after  generation  out  of  darkness  into 
light.  It  points  out  on  either  side  the  false 
paths  which  lead  to  death.  It  speaks  with 
an  authority  far  higher  than  that  of  theo- 
logical infallibility.  It  is  full  of  the  Spirit 
of  God,  which  is  the  spirit  of  truth,  and  its 
power  is  not  dependent  on  the  theories  of 
inspiration  which  men  may  devise,  but  on 
its  own  immortal  life,  its  sublime  elevation, 
its  power  of  bringing  the  soul  to  God  and  to 
peace."  l  v  «i 

The  Bible  contains  the  word  of  God,  but 
it  cannot  be  claimed  that  every  word  and 
syllable  in  it  is  the  word  of  God.  Here  in 
these  writings  is  a  veritable  message  from 

'James  Freeman  Clarke,  "Common  Sense  in  Religion," 
page  98. 


98        THE   MAIN   POINTS 

God  to  men.  Its  fruits  are  seen  in  the 
changed  lives  of  those  who  receive  its 
heaven-sent  good  news!  It  accomplishes  its 
supreme  work  when  it  conducts  us  into  the 
presence  of  Jesus  Christ.  We  then  trust 
for  present  and  eternal  salvation,  not  in 
the  Bible,  but  in  the  mercy  of  God,  made 
effective  to  us  through  the  redemption  of 
Jesus  Christ,  into  whose  presence  and  fel- 
lowship this  sure  word  of  the  Spirit  has 
brought  us. 

The  Bible  guides  men  into  the  experience 
of  the  forgiveness  of  their  sins,  into  moral 
renewal  by  divine  grace,  into  all  the  help 
that  comes  through  prayer,  trust,  and  obedi- 
ence. It  profitably  equips  and  furnishes 
men  for  every  form  of  good  work.  These 
are  matters  of  present  and  personal  experi- 
ence. And  touching  its  utterances  regarding 
matters  which  lie  beyond  the  range  of  pres- 
ent experience,  we  may  say  this :  If  some  manj 
for  forty  years  has  been  telling  us  the  truth 
touching  matters  where  we  could  verify  his 
statements  in  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine 
instances,  when  he  makes  his  thousandth 
statement  touching  some  matter  where  we 
cannot  submit  his  utterance  to  verification, 
we  feel  inclined  to  accept  his  word  and  rest 
confidently  upon  our  faith  in  his  already  as- 


AUTHORITY  OF   BIBLE    99 

certained  integrity.  The  Bible  has  established 
itself  in  human  confidence  by  its  faithful 
guidance,  bringing  men  moral  peace  and 
spiritual  renewal;  and  as  rational  beings  they 
trust  it  even  when  it  speaks  of  matters 
which  lie  at  present  beyond  their  ken. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE   UTILITY   OF   PRAYER 

THE  moment  we  believe  in  God  we  are 
face  to  face  with  a  strong  presump- 
tion in  favor  of  the  utility  of  prayer.  If  he 
is  the  Almighty,  he  can  hear.  If  he  is  a 
moral  being,  he  will  make  reply.  This  argu- 
ment was  suggested  by  the  psalmist  of  old, 
"He  that  planted  the  ear,  shall  he  not 
hear?  He  that  formed  the  eye,  shall  he  not 
see?"  The  man  who  believes  that  God  is 
and  that  he  is  a  God  of  character,  by  that 
faith  affirms  his  further  confidence  that 
"he  is  a  rewarder  of  them  that  diligently 
seek  him." 

Prayer  reduced  to  its  simplest  terms  is 
the  natural,  affectionate  intercourse  between 
a  father  and  his  children.  The  Gospels 
assert  that  "these  two  mysterious  beings, 
man  and  God,  have  such  a  kinship  between 
them  that  their  relationship  to  each  other 
can  in  no  other  way  be  so  well  named  as  by 
the  terms  'father'  and  'child.'  This  con- 
ception makes  room  for  that  infinite  distance 
100 


UTILITY   OF   PRAYER    101 

between  God  and  man  which  so  profoundly 
impresses  all  whose  minds  dwell  upon  the 
subject.  Between  the  man  of  power,  knowl- 
edge and  wide  range  of  interest,  and  the 
infant  whose  face  is  breaking  into  its  first 
intelligent  smile,  the  distance  is  well-nigh 
immeasurable,  though  it  in  no  way  destroys 
the  genuineness  of  the  kinship  between  them. 
Toward  the  Infinite  Father  our  path  is  to 
be  trodden  in  the  same  way  the  child  treads 
the  path  toward  equality  with  the  human 
parent."  l 

The  method  of  prayer  is  not  found  in  the 
action  of  criminals  entreating  a  judge  for 
mercy,  or  of  courtiers  beseeching  their  king 
for  favors,  or  of  adepts  seeking  to  manip- 
ulate certain  mysterious  forces  in  the  world 
for  personal  ends.  It  is  found  in  the  form 
and  the  spirit  of  family  life.  "When  ye 
pray,  say,  Our  Father."  Prayer  is  the  act 
of  a  child  entering  into  companionship  with 
his  Father.  Prayer  is  thus  natural  and 
rational.  The  man  who  never  speaks  to 
his  Father  is  morbid!  If  you,  with  all  your 
imperfections,  love  to  have  your  children 
come  to  you;  if  they  are  benefited  by  com- 
ing; if  you  give  them  bread  and  fish,  instruc- 
tion and  help,  affection  and  companionship, 

P.  Coyle,  "The  Imperial  Christ,"  page  74. 


102      THE  MAIN  POINTS 

when  they  come,  how  much  more  will  your 
heavenly  Father  give  good  things  to  them 
that  ask  him! 

The  definite  promises  of  Scripture  encour- 
age the  habit  of  prayer.  The  Bible  speaks 
of  the  moral  needs  and  privileges  of  men  with 
accuracy  and  authority.  Its  words  about 
prayer  are  clear  and  confident.  It  never 
seems  to  be  feeling  its  way.  It  walks  with 
firm  tread,  as  in  the  light  of  ascertained 
facts.  "Men  ought  always  to  pray."  "Ask, 
and  ye  shall  receive."  "Seek,  and  ye  shall 
find."  "Knock,"  —  if  you  desire  to  ad- 
vance where  the  way  seems  closed,  —  "and 
it  shall  be  opened  unto  you."  The  utility 
of  prayer  is  steadily  assumed. 

Two  familiar  passages  illustrate  what 
perseverance  will  accomplish  in  the  face  of 
unfavorable  conditions.  A  selfish  man  was 
in  bed  at  midnight,  angrily  unwilling  to 
be  disturbed,  but  because  his  neighbor  per- 
sisted in  knocking,  the  crabbed  fellow  arose 
and  gave  him  bread  to  set  before  those 
guests  who  had  overtaken  him  with  an  empty 
larder.  An  unjust  judge,  who  neither  feared 
God  nor  man,  was  so  moved  by  the  per- 
sistence of  a  poor  widow  —  a  type  of  help- 
lessness in  a  corrupt  court  of  law  —  that 
simply  through  dread  of  being  wearied  by 


UTILITY  OF   PRAYER    103 

her  continual  coming,  he  gave  her  justice. 
These  are  arguments  e  contrario.  If  perse- 
verance in  the  face  of  such  adverse  condi- 
tions gains  its  end,  how  much  more  will 
persevering  prayer  secure  its  object  when 
directed  to  the  benevolent  Father!  These 
are  samples  of  the  many  confident  assurances 
the  Scriptures  offer  us  regarding  the  efficacy 
of  honest  prayer. 

A  further  encouragement  to  our  faith  in 
the  efficacy  of  prayer  arises  from  the  example 
of  Jesus.  Even  those  who  refuse  assent  to 
the  claim  that  he  was  the  Son  of  God  regard 
him  as  the  best  man  that  ever  lived  —  in 
fact,  a  perfect  man.  It  is  significant  that 
this  perfect  man  was  preeminently  a  man  of 
prayer.  Humanity  at  its  best  prays.  The 
Son  of  Man,  whose  moral  achievements  have 
never  been  surpassed,  spent  whole  nights 
in  prayer.  His  habit  of  prayer  was  so  mani- 
festly helpful  that  his  disciples  came  to  him 
and  said,  "Lord,  teach  us  to  pray."  We 
have  no  record  of  their  saying,  "Lord,  teach 
us  to  heal,"  or,  "Teach  us  to  preach."  They 
saw  that  his  power  to  heal,  and  to  speak  as 
never  man  spake,  sprang  from  his  sense  of 
vital  fellowship  with  the  Father,  sustained 
by  prayer.  They  asked  therefore  that  they 
might  be  taught  to  pray. 


104      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

Jesus  left  one  prayer  so  beautiful,  so  com- 
prehensive, so  satisfying  to  the  human  heart, 
that  it  is  being  repeated  this  very  day  in 
more  than  three  hundred  languages  by 
prayerful  men.  When  the  representatives 
of  all  religions  met  in  a  parliament  at  the 
World's  Fair  in  Chicago,  the  "Lord's 
Prayer"  was  by  universal  consent  adopted 
as  the  form  of  petition  for  the  opening  of 
the  sessions.  Jews  and  Gentiles,  Cretes 
and  Arabians,  Buddhists  and  Christians, 
Mohammedans  and  Hindus,  all  spoke  to 
the  Father  through  those  simple  words,  as 
in  a  language  to  which  they  were  born. 

Jesus,  the  author  of  this  universal  prayer, 
made  the  most  confident  promises  as  to  the 
efficacy  of  prayer.  He  saw  life  whole,  and 
with  clear-eyed  intelligence  he  set  his  seal 
upon  the  noble  utility  of  prayer.  The  whole 
life  of  this  perfect  man  was  bathed  in  prayer. 
He  prayed  even  when  his  enemies  were  un- 
justly putting  him  to  death.  The  disciple 
cannot  do  better  than  be  as  his  Lord.  When 
men  grow  so  wise  that  they  do  not  pray, 
scoffing  at  the  idea  of  prayer  accomplishing 
anything,  we  may  well  compare  their  moral 
intelligence  and  spiritual  effectiveness  with 
that  of  Jesus;  and  then  recall  the  fact  that 
his  confidence  in  prayer  never  wavered. 


UTILITY  OF   PRAYER    105 

Another  strong  presumption  in  favor  of 
the  value  of  prayer  arises  when  we  turn  to 
the  long,  broad  lines  of  human  experience. 
The  scientific  way  of  reaching  the  truth  is 
not  to  sit  down  and  reason  out  in  advance 
what  ought  to  be  the  fact,  what  is  possible 
or  probable  in  this  great  world  of  which  we 
know  so  little;  the  scientific  method  is  to 
go  and  see.  Human  beings  have  always 
had  the  habit  of  prayer.  There  have  been 
cities  without  walls,  without  schools,  with- 
out markets,  without  books,  without  many 
things  that  we  ordinarily  associate  with  city 
life,  but  never  a  city  without  its  places  of 
prayer.  Prayer  is  the  persistent,  incurable 
habit  of  the  race. 

The  fact  that  it  is  thus  widespread  and  has 
endured  through  all  the  centuries  indicates 
that  it  has  utility.  When  we  find  a  fin  on  a 
fish,  a  wing  on  a  bird,  an  "instinct"  in  an 
animal,  the  fact  that  it  is  there  indicates 
that  it  is  useful  —  it  would  not  otherwise 
have  been  retained.  Useless  organs  disap- 
pear or  become  rudimentary.  Unless  prayer 
sustains  some  vital  relation  to  man's  well- 
being  it  would  not  have  thus  endured.  The 
fact  that  the  race  always  has  prayed  and 
the  fact  that  a  greater  volume  of  intelli- 
gent prayer  is  being  offered  in  this  twentieth 


io6      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

century  than  ever  before  raise  a  strong 
presumption  that  such  an  exercise  of  one's 
powers  is  rational  and  useful. 

In  the  face  of  this  persistent  habit  of 
mankind,  it  is  instructive  to  recall  the  testi- 
mony of  a  distinguished  evolutionist  that  in 
Nature  we  have  found  it  to  be  true  that 
"everywhere  the  internal  adjustment  has 
been  brought  about  so  as  to  harmonize  with 
some  actually  existing  external  fact.  The 
eye  was  developed  in  response  to  the  out- 
ward existence  of  radiant  light,  the  ear  in 
response  to  the  outward  existence  of  acous- 
tic vibrations,  the  mother's  love  came  in 
response  to  the  infant's  needs.  If  the  rela- 
tion established  in  the  morning  twilight  of 
man's  existence  between  the  human  soul 
and  a  world  invisible  and  immaterial  is  a 
relation  of  which  only  the  subjective  term  is 
real  and  the  objective  term  is  non-existent, 
then,  I  say,  it  is  something  utterly  without 
precedent  in  the  whole  history  of  creation." 
If  the  capacity  of  man  for  fellowship  with 
God  through  prayer  were  real  only  at  our 
end  of  the  line  and  unreal  at  the  other,  then 
it  is  an  utter  break  in  the  whole  method 
discovered  in  the  ascertained  uniformities  of 
Nature.  "The  lesson  of  evolution  there- 
fore is  that  through  all  these  weary  ages  the 


UTILITY  OF   PRAYER    107 

human  soul  has  not  been  cherishing  in  relig- 
ion a  delusive  phantom,  but  in  spite  of  seem- 
ingly endless  groping  and  stumbling,  it  has 
been  rising  to  the  recognition  of  its  essential 
kinship  with  the  ever-living  God."  *  >  ~ 

And  what  has  been  the  broadly  ascer- 
tained result  of  this  widespread  and  long- 
continued  effort  to  realize  kinship  with  God 
through  prayer?  The  cumulative  answer 
comes  back  from  multitudes  of  praying 
men  —  hearts  have  been  renewed,  affec- 
tions purified,  wills  strengthened,  aspira- 
tions lifted;  great  and  gracious  answers  of 
peace  have  come;  added  security  and  con- 
fidence have  been  enjoyed.  We  need  not 
turn  to  those  exceptional  and  surprising 
"answers  to  prayer"  sometimes  collected 
into  books  of  anecdote.  Curious  coinci- 
dences have  sometimes  been  urged  as  foun- 
dation-stones for  confidences  in  the  efficacy 
of  prayer.  Fortunate  occurrences  have  been 
overworked  in  the  supposed  interests  of  a 
conquering  faith.  In  this  consideration  I 
would  ground  my  faith  in  prayer  rather 
upon  the  broad  and  ordinary  lines,  where 
there  are  uninterrupted  answers  coming 
back  to  men  as  they  pray.  The  spiritual 
results  of  the  habit  of  honest  prayer  are  so 

'John  Fiske,  "Through  Nature  to  God,"  pages  189,  191. 


io8      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

well  ascertained  as  to  lend  strong  aid  in 
lifting  this  exercise  into  the  place  of  dignity 
and  the  region  of  high  confidence  where  it 
belongs. 

These  four  presumptions,  then,  taken  from 
the  natural  implications  of  our  belief  in  God, 
from  the  confident  promises  of  those  writings 
which  contain  Supreme  Court  decisions  and 
form  the  common  law  of  spiritual  life,  from 
the  habit  and  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  and  from 
long  lines  of  human  experience,  must  have 
weight  in  determining  any  one's  attitude 
toward  prayer. 

Two  objections  to  prayer  on  rational 
grounds  are  made,  —  one  from  a  scientific 
and  the  other  from  a  philosophical  point  of 
view.  The  claim  is  made  that  an  answer  to 
prayer  would  involve  the  interruption  of  the 
established  order;  it  would  mean,  therefore, 
a  violation  of  law.  In  the  presence  of  the 
unbending  constancy  of  the  physical  system 
which  surrounds  us,  impressing  the  average 
man  with  its  moral  indifference,  prayer  seems 
like  an  irrational  proceeding.  It  appears  to 
some  minds  as  the  act  of  a  puny  being  urging 
upon  the  Omnipotent  that  the  great  through 
traffic  of  the  world  be  side-tracked  in  order 
to  give  his  local  train  the  right  of  way. 

The  other  objection  is  to  the  effect  that 


UTILITY   OF   PRAYER    109 

if  God  is  wise  and  good,  he  will  do  what  is 
best  for  us,  and  for  every  one,  without  our 
asking  —  indeed,  to  ask  him  for  anything 
implies  a  certain  solicitude  as  to  his  appro- 
priate action.  "Your  heavenly  Father 
knoweth  that  ye  have  need  of  all  these 
things."  Then  why  should  we  ask?  It  is 
an  impertinence  in  that  it  calls  upon  him  to 
change  his  line  of  action  in  obedience  to 
our  suggestion.  All  the  lesser  questions 
which  arise  are  really  comprehended  within 
these  two  fundamental  ones. 

In  regard  to  the  first,  that  an  answer  to 
prayer  involves  the  violation  of  law,  we 
sometimes  frighten  ourselves  unnecessarily 
by  writing  the  word  "Law,"  with  a  capital 
letter,  and  then  imagining  that  it  is  "a  kind 
of  second-hand  deity  of  itself,"  never  to 
be  interfered  with  by  any  one  in  heaven  or 
on  earth.  All  this  is  purely  verbal.  "Nat- 
ural law"  is  simply  a  phrase  to  indicate  the 
regular,  orderly  habits  of  the  Creator  who 
is  above  all  and  in  all  things.  We  have 
noted  some  of  his  cosmic  habits  as  being 
regular  and  we  call  them  "laws."  But  God 
is  not  bound  by  them.  He  has  not  tied  his 
own  hands  by  certain  of  his  own  habits. 
On  the  whole  he  apparently  deems  it  best 
to  observe  them  regularly,  that  his  crea- 


no      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

tures  may  depend  upon  his  activity  in  cer- 
tain matters  —  the  rising  of  the  sun,  the 
return  of  the  seasons,  the  growth  of  seed,  the 
bodily  conditions  of  health  and  disease  — 
with  solid  certainty.  These  habits  are  wise 
and  good  or  he  would  not  have  adopted 
them.  But  to  fancy  that  he  will  not  and 
cannot  vary  his  action;  to  imagine,  for  in- 
stance, that  he  could  not  reinforce  and 
quicken  that  energy  which  we  lightly  call 
"the  healing  process  of  nature"  in  the  case 
of  the  sick;  to  deny  his  power  to  help  by  some 
unusual  movement  of  his  silent  energy  for 
the  relief  of  one  of  his  children  in  an  emer- 
gency, would  be  to  make  him  less  than 
God. 

Praying  people  are  sometimes  unneces- 
sarily frightened  by  a  pretentious  phrase  — 
"the  uniformity  of  nature."  There  is  such 
a  thing,  but  no  one  knows  enough  to  define 
it.  No  one  would  undertake  to  name  all 
"the  laws  of  nature."  The  interrelation  of 
spiritual  forces  with  physical  forces  is  but 
dimly  understood.  We  are  feeling  our  way 
toward  an  understanding  of  the  total  "uni- 
formity of  nature"  which  includes  all  such 
interaction,  but  that  perfect  knowledge  is 
at  present  too  high  for  us;  we  cannot  attain 
unto  it.  It  is  therefore  dogmatic  assump- 


UTILITY  OF  PRAYER    in 

tion  to  claim  that  the  few  things  we  have 
learned  about  "natural  law"  entirely  block 
the  way  and  make  it  impossible  for  God  to 
answer  the  prayers  of  his  children. 

These  scientific  laws,  which  are  often  held 
up  as  bogies  to  frighten  the  children  of  the 
Father  out  of  their  confidence  in  him,  are 
simply  the  best  we  know  thus  far  about 
some  manifestations  of  an  Eternal  Energy. 
The  truly  scientific  man  does  not  undertake 
to  say  what  may  or  may  not  be  possible  in 
realms  where  his  knowledge  is  confessedly 
incomplete.  He  does  not  deny  the  pos- 
sibility of  miracles,  or  the  possibility  of 
answers  to  prayer  —  it  is  purely  a  matter 
of  evidence  as  to  what  does  actually  occur. 

This  must  be  so  in  the  nature  of  the  case. 
We  have  been  surprised  so  many  times 
that  possibly  we  may  be  surprised  again. 
There  are  more  things  in  this  world  than 
men  have  dreamed  of,  and  more  things 
wrought  by  prayer  than  hasty  philosophies 
allow.  Men  were  saying  fifty  years  ago  that 
it  was  scientifically  impossible  to  run  a 
heavy  street  car  through  the  streets,  loaded 
with  a  hundred  people,  heated,  lighted,  and 
moved  by  a  current  of  electricity  from  a 
single  wire.  They  said  it  was  scientifically 
impossible  to  talk  from  New  York  to  Chicago 


ii2      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

and  have  the  familiar  tones  of  a  friend's 
voice  recognized,  or  to  transmit  by  elec- 
tricity a  signature  preserving  its  well-known 
individuality.  They  said  it  was  scientific- 
ally impossible  to  telegraph  with  accuracy 
for  hundreds  of  miles  across  the  open  sea 
without  wires.  They  said  that  the  present 
phenomena  of  hypnotism  and  healing  by 
suggestion,  recognized  by  scientific  men  as 
beyond  a  peradventure,  were  scientifically 
impossible.  In  all  these  and  in  many  other 
cases  they  were  mistaken  in  their  presuppo- 
sitions. We  are  constantly  learning  more 
about  the  subtle,  invisible  forces  in  this  world. 
We  are  not  prepared  offhand  to  decide  upon 
what  is  or  what  is  not  impossible,  or  to  pass 
upon  the  claims  that  many  of  the  earth's 
wisest  and  best  men  have  made  regarding 
prayer,  without  painstaking  investigation. 

When  I  begin  to  pray  for  my  own  phys- 
ical health,  for  the  recovery  of  some  sick 
friend,  for  success  in  my  undertakings,  for 
moral  peace  and  strength,  or  for  any  legit- 
imate object,  I  set  in  motion  new  forces. 
They  begin  to  act  not  in  violation  of  law, 
but  in  accordance  with  a  higher  law;  they 
introduce  a  new  element  to  be  reckoned 
with.  The  man  drawing  water  out  of  a 
well,  where  the  force  of  gravitation  would 


UTILITY  OF   PRAYER    113 

cause  the  water  to  remain,  is  not  violating 
a  universal  law,  he  is  bringing  to  bear  another 
force  which  alters  what  would  have  been 
the  natural  position  of  the  water.  Human 
energy  and  volition  are  constantly  playing 
into  the  great  natural  order,  realizing  pur- 
poses which  would  not  have  been  realized 
if  the  system  had  been  left  to  itself.  The 
man  who  prays  puts  in  operation  a  kind  of 
energy,  invisible  as  electricity  or  as  the 
atmospheric  waves  which  make  possible 
wireless  telegraphy,  or  as  the  force  that 
acts  in  the  influence  of  thought  upon  diges- 
tion, but  just  as  real.  Prayer  is  the  act  of 
a  man  bringing  up  his  need  by  a  moral  act 
and  linking  it  with  the  offered  help  of  God. 
This  brings  to  bear  upon  the  situation  a  new 
force. 

When  we  thus  stand  amazed  on  the  one 
hand  at  the  results  accomplished  by  certain 
invisible  forces  with  which  we  are  slowly 
becoming  acquainted,  and  when  we  turn  on 
the  other  hand  to  the  confident  words  of  a 
Master  in  the  kingdom  of  the  spirit,  we  are 
not  disturbed  in  our  faith  by  these  would-be 
scientific  objections  as  to  the  efficacy  of 
prayer. 

A  man  standing  in  his  noblest  attitude 
before  God,  turning  the  whole  of  his  inner 


ii4      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

life  Godward,  bending  the  full  energy  of 
will  and  affection  toward  the  attainment  of 
some  holy  end,  is  wielding  a  force  not  eas- 
ily estimated.  As  President  Eliot  of  Har- 
vard said,  "Prayer  is  the  transcendent  effort 
of  human  intelligence."  Jesus  did  not  use 
scientific  language;  he  used  popular  language, 
but  he  made  this  point  clear  —  for  moral 
ends,  for  the  purpose  of  rich  spiritual  devel- 
opment, God  has  within  his  keeping  certain 
great  aids  which  are  only  obtainable  by  that 
noble  exercise  of  the  highest  faculties  which 
we  call  prayer. 

We  are  in  no  wise  disturbed  by  the  fact 
that  we  have  not  reduced  the  possibilities 
of  this  prayer  force,  acting  within  the  larger 
uniformities  of  God,  to  an  exact  science. 
We  have  not  reduced  to  an  exact  science 
the  influence  of  a  mother's  love  upon  her 
children,  or  the  effect  of  a  good  name  upon 
one's  prospect  of  success,  or  the  physical 
benefits  of  a  cheerful  habit  of  mind.  We  have 
not  reduced  to  an  exact  science  the  forces 
at  work  in  a  wheat-field  —  they  are  too 
intricate  for  our  present  knowledge.  Per- 
fect intelligence  would  know  how  many 
grains  in  each  bushel  would  sprout  and  grow, 
but  no  man  can  tell.  Perfect  intelligence 
could  indicate  why  certain  prayers  are 


UTILITY   OF   PRAYER    115 

answered  and  why  some  are  not,  but  such 
complete  understanding  of  all  the  forces 
to  be  considered  is  not  within  our  reach. 
But  even  though  in  all  these  fields  our  knowl- 
edge stops  far  short  of  completeness,  enough 
is  known  to  encourage  the  effort  —  mothers 
love  their  children;  a  right-minded  man 
guards  his  good  name;  sensible  people  pro- 
mote health  by  good  cheer.  Farmers  sow 
in  the  confidence  that  they  will  reap;  and 
thoughtful  people  keep  on  praying,  assured 
by  the  promises  of  Christ  and  by  an  ever- 
increasing  volume  of  religious  experience, 
that  prayer  works  its  own  beneficent 
results.  s 

The  other  objection  raises  the  question 
as  to  why  a  wise  and  good  God  should  with- 
hold action  until  we  ask.  How  can  we 
indeed  ask  him  to  vary  what  must  already 
have  been  perfect  action!  $- 

Such  a  priori  objections  might  be  carried 
into  other  fields  as  well.  Why  does  a  good 
God  withhold  from  his  children  a  wheat 
harvest  until  they  have  plowed  and  sowed 
and  reaped?  Why  does  God  hide  away 
treasures  of  gold  in  the  hills,  locking  it  up 
in  quartz,  scattering  its  grains  through  the 
clay  and  sand,  covering  it  with  mountains? 
He  does  it  because  toil  is  good  for  men.  It 


ii6       THE  MAIN  POINTS 

would  have  been  a  doubtful  kindness  to 
lay  these  values  in  heaps  ready  to  man's 
hand.  All  things  have  been  done  and  are 
being  done  now  for  the  moral  education 
of  the  race.  In  all  that  God  does,  whether 
in  the  renewal  of  the  spiritual  life,  or  in 
healing  the  body,  or  in  ordering  the  seasons, 
he  has  in  mind  the  moral  improvement  of 
his  people.  Benefits  are  conditioned  upon 
appropriate  effort  because  of  the  moral  ends 
which  are  thereby  served.  Blessings  wait 
upon  our  asking,  because  men  nowhere 
receive  more  effective  moral  education  than 
in  waiting  upon  God  in  prayer.  The  soul 
never  stands  in  such  dignity  of  privilege, 
never  asserts  its  richest  prerogative  so  fully 
as  when,  standing  face  to  face  with  its  Maker, 
it  talks  with  him  of  the  things  that  belong 
to  its  peace. 

This  is  a  strange  objection  to  prayer! 
Why  does  a  wise  and  good  God,  knowing  our 
needs,  require  us  to  come  and  ask  him  before 
he  grants  his  help?  That  is  to  say,  why 
does  he  not  proceed  to  do  what  is  best, 
leaving  us  free  to  spend  our  time  with  some 
one  else,  instead  of  spending  it  with  him? 
t  The  objection  vanishes  the  moment  we 
remember  that  all  things  are  ordered  with 
reference  to  strengthening  the  moral  bond 


UTILITY  OF  PRAYER    117 

between  the  Father  and  His  children.  If  any- 
one of  you  is  a  father,  why  do  you  love  to 
have  your  children  come  to  you,  talk  over 
their  affairs  with  you,  ask  you  for  what 
they  want,  sometimes  wisely  and  sometimes 
unwisely?  You  know  that  their  coming  and 
the  consequent  reinforcement  of  the  bond 
between  you  and  them  is  not  only  a  joy  to 
you,  it  is  for  the  lasting  advantage  of  the 
children.  Thus  a  wise  and  good  God,  for 
the  same  sacred  ends,  withholds  certain 
blessings  until  his  children  obediently  and 
lovingly  come  to  him  in  prayer. 

It  is  an  unspeakable  loss  for  children  never 
to  have  known  the  companionship  of  the 
earthly  father  and  mother.  It  a  greater 
loss  for  a  man  never  to  know,  through  heart 
to  heart  communion,  the  companionship  of 
a  heavenly  Father.  Therefore,  because  of 
the  incompleteness  of  our  moral  nurture 
without  this  experience,  God  has  made  cer- 
tain benefits,  temporal  as  well  as  spiritual, 
conditional  upon  our  coming  to  him  in 
prayer.  He  has  ordained  this  method  of 
securing  blessings  untold,  that  we  may  be 
attracted  and  encouraged  to  know  him 
whom  to  know  is  life  eternal.  i 

Prayer  will  bear  the  scientific  and  the  phil- 
osophic test,  and  its  realities  can  be  stated 


ii8       THE  MAIN  POINTS 

in  the  language  of  the  schools.  Yet  the 
simple,  familiar  language  Jesus  used  puts  it 
more  clearly  and  effectively.  As  a  boy  you 
did  not  stand  outside  your  father's  door 
when  you  were  conscious  of  some  need  which 
he  could  supply.  You  did  not  tarry,  rea- 
soning, in  metaphysical  fashion,  that  if  your 
father  were  wise  and  good  he  would  do  what 
was  best;  or  that  any  suggested  deviation 
would  be  a  violation  of  the  family  order 
which  must  be  right  since  he  established  it. 
You  went  in  and  asked.  It  was  better  for 
you  to  ask,  even  though  your  requests 
lacked  wisdom.  The  eight-year-old  boy  who 
asked  for  a  shotgun  did  not  get  it,  but  he 
received  something  better  than  a  shotgun 
through  that  hour  of  companionship  with 
his  father.  Except  ye  become  as  little 
children  in  your  method  of  procedure,  ye 
shall  in  no  wise  enter  into  the  deeper  mean- 
ing of  prayer. 

Practical  men  have  sometimes  turned  away 
from  prayer  as  a  thing  well  enough  for  women 
and  children,  but  having  no  attraction  for 
clear-headed  men  of  affairs.  But  they  in 
the  stress  of  this  work-a-day  world,  feel  the 
need  of  something  to  lift  their  lives  to  a 
higher  plane  of  thought  and  action.  They 
need  to  know  him  whom  the  wisest  of  men 


UTILITY  OF  PRAYER    119 

called  "the  Father."  If  they  would  go  in, 
not  troubling  themselves  about  the  particular 
range  of  their  requests,  not  embarrassing 
themselves  by  scientific  and  metaphysical 
questions  that  once  seemed  to  block  the 
way,  but  becoming  as  little  children  speak- 
ing to  their  father,  the  philosophy  of  prayer 
would  be  cleared  of  its  difficulties  by  blessed 
personal  experience. 

Two  things  ought  ever  to  be  borne  in 
mind:  the  chief  object  of  prayer  is  not  to 
get  something.  The  claim  has  been  made 
that  if  we  have  faith  we  can  get  anything 
we  want.  Jesus  had  faith.  He  prayed, 
"Let  this  cup  pass  from  me."  It  did  not 
pass.  He  drank  it  next  day  upon  the  cross. 
But  he  continued  in  prayer  until  he  could 
say,  "If  I  must  drink  it,  not  my  will,  but 
thine,  be  done."  The  purpose  of  prayer  is 
not  to  enable  a  man  to  stand  before  God 
and  say,  "Not  as  thou  wilt,  but  as  I  will." 
Its  deeper  purpose  is  to  bring  him  into  that 
harmony  with  God,  where  he  will  say, 
"Thy  will  be  done." 

That  of  itself  is  a  mighty  answer.  What 
better  thing  could  come  than  that  he  should 
be  made  able  to  say  to  the  Perfect  One, 
"Thy  will  be  done."  This  would  not  mean 
mere  passive  acquiescence  in  the  inevi- 


120       THE  MAIN  POINTS 

table.  It  would  imply  conscious  self-devote- 
ment  to  the  will  of  God.  Jesus  prayed  until 
he  could  say,  "Thy  will  be  done."  He  then 
added,  "Rise,  let  us  be  going,"  as  he  went 
forth  to  do  the  Father's  will.  The  prayer 
that  brings  us  into  voluntary  harmony  with 
the  divine  purpose  has  in  that  very  fact 
achieved  a  gracious  answer. 
I  We  are  not  intent  upon  having  our  own 
way  in  every  situation,  nor  do  we  suppose 
that  such  a  result  would  be  for  our  highest 
good.  God  has  not  resigned  the  manage- 
ment of  the  world  into  the  hands  of  his 
fumbling  children,  whether  they  stand  or 
kneel.  It  would  be  a  strange  family  where 
the  will  of  the  children  ruled  the  home. 
Many  a  prayer  fails  to  bring  the  specific 
thing  sought.  "The  prayer  of  faith  shall 
save  the  sick,"  yet  the  writer  knew  there 
would  come  a  last  sickness  when  each  would 
die,  even  though  prayer  for  his  recovery 
might  be  offered.  "The  effectual  fervent 
prayer  of  a  righteous  man  availeth  much" 
—  much,  but  not  everything  which  imper- 
fect knowledge  might  ask. 

The  universe  is  not  a  democracy  where 
the  people  rule  even  though  their  wishes 
be  expressed  in  prayer.  It  is  a  kingdom 
where  God  rules  in  a  fatherly  way  over  the 


UTILITY  OF  PRAYER    121 

lives  of  his  growing  but  immature  children. 
It  would  be  a  calamity  if  every  ignorant 
prayer  were  answered;  if  the  world  were 
wholly  managed  by  our  wishes  rather  than 
by  his  higher  wisdom.  The  chief  purpose  of 
prayer  throughout  is  not  that  of  getting 
our  will  done,  but  the  enjoyment  of  that 
richer  privilege  of  being  with  the  Father, 
and  of  being  brought  into  active  harmony 
with  his  holy  will. 

Jesus  looked  ahead  to  the  time  when  the 
clamorous,  insistent  type  of  prayer,  intent 
upon  its  own  ends,  would  pass.  He  reminded 
us  that  men  are  not  heard  for  their  much 
speaking.  He  said,  "In  that  day  ye  shall 
ask  me  nothing."  The  petitionary  ele- 
ment would  be  overshadowed  by  the  sense 
of  holy  companionship.  When  you  are 
praying  you  are  in  the  highest  company 
possible.  The  fact  that  you  are  there  in  con- 
scious fellowship  with  the  heavenly  Father 
is  a  rich  reward  for  your  act.  "Hours  are 
well  spent  when  they  are  spent  with  Him." 

When  you  fail  of  obtaining  some  specific 
request  it  does  not  destroy  your  faith  in 
prayer,  nor  incline  you  to  cease.  The  eight- 
year-old  boy  who  failed  of  the  shotgun  did 
not  stop  associating  with  his  father.  The 
parent  who  in  pleading  for  a  child's  life 


1 
122     THE'MAIN  POINTS 

looked  up  defiantly,  silently  vowing  that  if 
the  child  died  she  would  never  pray  again, 
thought  better  of  it;  she  saw  that  such  an 
attitude  was  not  in  the  spirit  of  prayer. 
She  gratefully  recalled  the  fact  that  a  higher 
wisdom  controls  all  things,  and  that  what- 
ever the  issue,  she  enjoyed  an  unspeakable 
advantage  in  that  she  was  brought  by  her 
prayer  into  closer  fellowship  with  the  Father. 

The  other  consideration  is  that  prayer  is 
not  a  mere  intellectual  exercise  or  an  effort 
of  the  will;  prayer  is  ethical  and  must  be 
the  act  of  the  entire  nature.  It  is  the  "  effec- 
tual fervent  prayer"  of  a  righteous  man 
that  "availeth  much."  The  assurance  is 
given  to  "the  Tightened  man  who  is  in  line 
with  the  laws  under  which  he  makes  his 
experiments." 

"When  ye  pray,  say  Our  Father."  We 
ask  as  his  children.  We  make  our  requests 
with  filial  freedom  and  confidence,  but  they 
proceed  from  a  filial  nature.  We  stand  in 
reverent,  obedient  trust  before  him  in  utter- 
ing even  the  first  two  words  of  genuine 
prayer.  We  must  find  our  places  in  his 
house,  at  his  table,  in  his  service  as  obedient 
children,  before  the  total  nature  can  look 
up  and  say,  "Our  Father."  Even  the  sinful 
man,  in  order  to  pray  for  his  own  forgive- 


UTILITY  OF  PRAYER    123 

ness,  must  come  in  penitence,  cherishing 
that  new  purpose  which  enables  him  to  say, 
"Father,  forgive." 

Jesus  added  further,  "If  ye  shall  ask 
anything  in  my  name,  I  will  do  it."  His 
name  was  to  be  used,  not  as  a  formal  endorse- 
ment, or  a  graceful  conclusion  of  the  request. 
"The  thought  is  not  that  of  using  the  name 
of  Jesus  as  a  password  or  a  talisman,  but 
of  entering  into  his  person  and  appropriat- 
ing his  will,  so  that  when  we  pray  it  shall  be 
as  though  Jesus  himself  stood  in  God's 
presence  and  made  intercession." l  To  pray 
in  the  name  of  Jesus  is  to  pray  in  his  spirit, 
and  to  pray  for  the  things  he  would  pray  for. 

And  what  did  Jesus  pray  for  in  his  re- 
corded prayers  ?  Not  for  wealth,  ease,  fame, 
personal  pleasure,  or  even  success,  except 
along  moral  lines.  The  Lord's  Prayer  con- 
tains but  one  petition  for  material  blessing, 
and  that  modestly  limits  itself  to  asking 
one  day's  bread  for  immediate  need.  The 
other  five  petitions  are  for  the  hallowing  of 
God's  name,  for  the  coming  of  his  kingdom, 
for  the  doing  of  his  will  on  earth,  for  for- 
giveness, and  for  deliverance  from  evil. 
This  furnishes  us  what  might  be  called  the 
"norm"  of  appropriate  petition.  The  model 

'A.  J.  Gordon,  "The  Ministry  of  the  Spirit,"  page  147. 


124      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

prayer  moves  chiefly  in  the  realm  of  moral 
things  and  all  prayer  offered  in  the  spirit 
of  Christ  will  lay  the  emphasis  there. 

We  have  Scriptural  warrant  for  praying  in 
regard  to  interests  other  than  those  directly 
spiritual,  but  always  with  an  eye  to  the 
bearing  of  those  benefits  on  the  coming  of 
his  kingdom  in  our  hearts  and  in  the  world. 
The  material  advantages  sought  are  subor- 
dinate to  the  spiritual  benefits  which  stand 
as  the  supreme  ends  to  be  gained  in  prayer. 
Pray  for  health,  for  intelligence,  for  oppor- 
tunities, for  the  success  of  legitimate  plans, 
but  always  that  in  and  through  these  you 
may  the  more  perfectly  glorify  God  as  a 
useful  servant  of  his  holy  will!  To  pray 
with  this  subordination  of  private  interest 
to  the  larger  demands  of  the  coming  king- 
dom is  to  pray  in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ. 
This  indicates  that  prayer  must  be  ethical 
and  that  it  can  only  be  effectively  offered 
by  those  who  are  bringing  their  lives  by 
personal  consecration  into  right  relations 
with  the  King  of  the  kingdom.  When  it 
is  thus  offered,  the  hand  of  the  petitioner  is 
knocking  at  a  door  which  opens  on  the 
treasure-house  of  the  Unseen  —  and  he  may 
do  it  in  the  confident  assurance  that  "to 
him  that  knocketh,  it  shall  be  opened." 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  QUESTION  OF  CONVERSION 

THE  doctrine  of  conversion  has  been 
helpfully  taught  and  it  has  also 
been  taught  in  ways  that  have  wrought 
confusion  and  harm.  The  simplicity  of 
Scripture  has  been  forgotten,  and  notions 
have  been  advanced  which  have  discour- 
aged and  repelled  men  who  ought  to  be 
rejoicing  now  in  the  Church  of  God  and  in 
the  salvation  of  Jesus  Christ.  The  mischief 
has  come  from  setting  up  certain  select 
types  of  Christian  experience  and  making 
them  the  sole  standard.  Some  classical  char- 
acter, John  Bunyan  perhaps,  or  some  un- 
godly man  in  the  community,  or  some 
woman  with  a  great  capacity  for  religious 
feeling,  has  been  fixed  upon  and  people 
have  been  told  that  the  experience  of 
such  an  one  was  the  accepted  method  of 
entrance  to  the  kingdom.  The  bold  in- 
truder who  would  climb  up  some  other  way 
was  set  down  as  a  thief  and  a  robber. 
The  one  selected  as  possessing  the  true 
125 


126      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

type  of  religious  experience  had  felt  bur- 
dened, guilty,  desperate.  He  then  repented 
with  great  sorrow  and  heartfelt  contrition. 
He  looked  up  and  saw  the  mercy  of  God  in 
Christ.  He  accepted  it  by  a  single,  instant 
act  of  faith.  Immediately  the  burden  of 
guilt  rolled  away  and  there  came  a  full 
sense  of  relief  in  his  heart.  He  at  once 
moved  out  joyously  with  a  glad  sense  of 
peace.  And  this  was  regarded  as  genuine 
conversion,  as  "getting  religion,"  while 
"other  less  picturesque  lines  of  entrance 
were  held  as  doubtful  and  probably  spuri- 
ous." Thus  the  mind  of  a  whole  commu- 
nity has  often  been  directed  toward  a  single 
and  perhaps  abnormal  type  of  experience 
as  the  necessary,  inevitable  road  into  the 
kingdom. 

This  has  produced  many  unhappy  results. 
The  people  whose  experiences  were  thus 
dramatic  have  been  encouraged  to  relate 
them,  giving  all  the  details.  No  stories, 
not  even  religious  stories,  are  apt  to  lose 
anything  in  the  telling;  and  without  con- 
scious desire  to  exaggerate  or  deceive,  these 
friends  went  about  telling  the  glad  story 
and  gradually  reading  back  into  the  ex- 
perience more  burden,  more  heartfelt  joy, 
more  sense  of  wondrous  uplift  and  of 


CONVERSION  127 

instant  acceptance  with  God,  than  was 
originally  there.  All  this  had  a  tendency 
to  beget  a  sense  of  superiority  over  those 
whose  modest  experiences  were  not  so 
thrilling. 

It  put  a  false  notion  into  the  minds  of 
children  and  young  people  as  to  what  ought 
to  be  expected  in  seeking  conversion.  It 
produced  apathy  in  those  who  were  made  to 
feel  that  no  steps  could  be  taken  toward 
leading  Christian  lives  without  this  dra- 
matic experience  at  the  start.  Henry  Clay 
once  said,  "I  am  not  a  Christian.  I  wish 
I  were.  Some  time  I  hope  I  shall  be."  He 
was  waiting  for  something  to  happen  to 
him,  as  lightning  might  fall  out  of  heaven. 
He  reasoned  that  none  but  God  could  send 
those  thrilling  experiences,  and  he  was 
waiting  passively  until  they  should  come, 
all  regardless  of  the  fact  that  whosoever 
will  may  come,  at  any  time,  anywhere,  with- 
out reference  to  those  accidents  of  emo- 
tional experience. 

What  is  conversion?  We  will  not  ask 
John  Calvin,  John  Wesley,  or  John  Bun- 
yan,  great  and  good  as  these  men  all  were, 
but  take  the  highest  authority.  The  word 
of  Jesus  was,  "Except  ye  be  converted,  and 
become  as  little  children,  ye  shall  not  enter 


128      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

into  the  kingdom  of  heaven."  The  word 
which  Jesus  used  for  "convert"  means  lit- 
erally "to  turn  around"  or  to  change  the 
purpose  of.  We  use  it  in  common  life.  We 
"convert"  the  dry-goods  box  into  a  dog- 
house by  laying  it  on  its  side,  cutting  a 
hole  in  one  end,  and  roofing  it  over.  Now 
instead  of  holding  muslins  it  shelters  a  dog, 
because  we  have  changed  its  purpose.  The 
English  "converted"  the  Old  South  Church 
into  a  riding-school  during  their  occupation 
of  Boston  during  the  War  of  the  Revolution. 
They  moved  the  pews  about  and  made  stalls 
where  they  stabled  their  horses.  Conver- 
sion meant  a  radical  change  in  the  use  to 
which  the  building  should  be  devoted. 

Thus  Jesus  looked  upon  men,  and  recog- 
nizing the  fact  that,  in  varying  degrees, 
they  had  all  gone  wrong,  he  said  to  them  in 
effect,  "You  are  living  for  the  wrong  things. 
You  are  moving  in  the  wrong,  direction. 
Except  you  turn  around  and  start  with 
fresh,  sweet,  clean  purposes  like  little  chil- 
dren, you  cannot  enter  the  kingdom."  The 
total  change  of  purpose  and  direction  in  the 
life  of  the  man  is  conversion. 

Here  is  a  man  who  wishes  to  attain  the 
sort  of  character  that  is  the  essential  ele- 
ment in  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  But  he  is 


CONVERSION  129 

going  in  the  wrong  direction;  every  year  he 
is  becoming  more  selfish,  less  responsive  to 
God's  Spirit.  He  must  turn  around;  the 
character  which  takes  men  into  the  kingdom 
lies  the  other  way.  He  must  face  toward 
unselfishness,  purity,  kindness.  This  facing 
about  is  the  human  side  of  his  conversion. 

In  another  passage,  this  entrance  into  the 
kingdom  is  called  a  "new  birth."  It  stands 
in  the  fourth  Gospel  —  in  the  synoptics  Jesus 
never  spoke  of  the  beginning  of  the  Chris- 
tian life  as  being  "born  again"  —  and  in  this 
one  instance  the  Master  is  represented  as 
holding  converse  with  an  expert  theologian. 
Nicodemus  was  a  master  in  Israel,  trained 
in  theological  phraseology. 

Jesus  met  the  woman  at  the  well,  the  man 
born  blind,  business  men  like  Zacchaeus  and 
Matthew,  fishermen  like  Peter,  James,  and 
John,  little  children  and  others,  and  upon 
none  of  these  occasions  did  he  speak  to  them 
about  the  necessity  of  taking  the  first  step 
by  being  "born  again."  He  told  them  that 
to  enter  the  kingdom  meant  to  follow  him, 
or  to  enter  a  door  he  opened,  or  to  accept  an 
invitation  to  a  feast,  or  to  receive  something 
offered  as  a  gift.  Yet  certain  evangelists 
have  met  young  and  old,  hardened  sinners 
and  little  children,  with  that  strange  dc- 


130      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

mand  which  staggered  the  Hebrew  theo- 
logian, "Ye  must  be  born  again." 

This  phrase  about  the  "new  birth"  indi- 
cates in  a  vivid  way  that  every  man  needs 
the  gift  of  new  life  from  God.  "Conver- 
sion" is  the  human  act  of  turning  to  God,  and 
"regeneration"  is  a  theological  term  em- 
ployed to  indicate  the  fact  that  God  gives 
new  life  to  all  who  turn  to  him  in  faith. 
"A  man  is  born  again  by  a  new  beginning 
in  the  soul's  life,  whereby  God  produces  a 
life  morally  similar  to  his  own." 

In  the  case  of  religiously  reared  children, 
there  should  be  nothing  dramatic  or  John 
Bunyan-like  in  their  conversion.  When  they 
apply  for  admission  to  the  Church,  in  response 
to  the  question,  "When  did  you  become  a 
Christian?"  they  often  say,  "We  do  not 
know."  May  they  never  know!  Alas  for 
those  who  stray  so  far  away  that  they  do 
know  the  day  and  the  hour  when  they  turned 
back! 

Is  it  necessary,  then,  for  the  children  of 
Christian  parents  to  be  converted?  Are 
they  ever  "born  again"?  It  is  necessary 
for  every  life  to  turn  to  God.  It  is  neces- 
sary for  every  nature  to  receive  the  gift  of 
new  life  from  God.  The  religiously  reared 
child  may  never  know  the  day  nor  the  hour 


CONVERSION  131 

when  the  inner  life  of  trust  and  obedience 
emerged  into  self-consciousness  —  it  is  not 
important  that  he  should  —  but  he  will  know 
that  there  has  been  a  turning  to  the  Father 
and  that  there  has  been  the  corresponding 
gift  of  life  bestowed  by  him. 

The  normal  development  of  the  child's 
religious  life  is  like  the  development  of  his 
relation  to  his  parents.  The  babe  is  born 
into  the  family  and  yet  at  the  beginning  his 
relation  to  the  father  and  mother  is  simply 
a  physical  fact.  The  baby  two  days  old 
could  not  be  said  to  have  love,  trust,  and 
obedience  toward  the  parents;  there  is  no 
sufficient  consciousness  there  to  sustain  this 
experience;  and  yet  this  constitutes  the 
essence  of  sonship  in  the  family.  The  baby 
is  born  the  child  of  the  parents  as  a  physical 
fact;  he  must  afterward  become  by  his  own 
personal  decision  loving  and  obedient;  he 
must  develop  for  himself  those  qualities 
which  constitute  sonship. 

Were  the  child  asked,  "When  did  you 
begin  to  love  your  parents?"  he  could  not 
tell.  He  would  say,  "I  do  not  know;  I 
was  born  into  an  atmosphere  favorable  to 
that  form  of  life,  and  as  a  part  of  my  normal 
development  I  learned  to  love,  trust,  and 
obey  my  parents."  He  knew  nothing  of 


132      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

prayer,  obedience,  or  trust  in  the  heavenly 
Father.  These,  too,  had  to  be  learned  by 
experience.  And  the  natural  voluntary  en- 
entrance  upon  these  forms  of  experience 
should  constitute  the  conversion  of  every 
child  in  a  Christian  home.  The  parents 
who  fail  to  furnish  that  persuasive  atmos- 
phere in  the  home  into  which  the  child  shall 
come,  and  under  the  gracious  stimulus  of 
which  he  shall  grow,  are  robbing  the  child  of 
his  appropriate  birthright. 

There  are  certain  years  that  are  physically 
crucial,  as  all  physicians  know.  There  are 
years  of  mental  crisis,  as  all  teachers  know. 
And  the  life  of  the  spirit  has  also  its  times 
and  seasons.  If  the  years  from  twelve  to 
eighteen  are  passed  without  this  conscious 
turning  to  the  Father  and  the  deliberate 
consecration  of  the  life  to  Christian  ideals, 
it  is  a  great  loss.  The  period  of  adoles- 
cence is  "a  day  of  the  Lord"  for  those  whose 
work  is  that  of  Christian  nurture  —  the 
night  cometh  when  no  man  can  work  such 
satisfying  results. 

The  Roman  Catholic  Church,  the  Lu- 
theran Church,  and  the  Episcopal  Church 
take  it  for  granted  that  the  children  of  their 
own  people  will  be  confirmed  and  become 
communicants  when  thev  reach  the  nroper 


CONVERSION  133 

age.  It  is  a  wholesome  practise.  The  ab- 
sence of  the  finer  qualities  of  religious  life 
in  many  Catholics  is  not  due  to  this  habit 
of  expecting  the  children  of  the  Church  to 
come  one  and  all  into  the  Church;  the  lack 
is  in  the  quality  of  Church  life  to  which  they 
are  invited. 

In  a  Christian  home  it  should  never 
become  an  open  question  with  the  child, 
"Shall  I  be  a  Christian  or  not?"  any  more 
than  it  should  ever  be  an  open  question  with 
a  girl,  "Shall  I  be  virtuous  or  not?"  The 
Christian  life  is  to  be  regarded  by  parents, 
by  teachers  in  the  Bible  school,  by  the  pas- 
tor, and  by  all  concerned  in  the  child's  wel- 
fare, as  a  foregone  conclusion.  It  should 
be  presented  as  the  only  natural  mode  of 
life. 

The  fearless  and  thorough  application  of 
the  principles  which  Jesus  taught  will  save 
to  all  our  Protestant  churches  many  of  the 
children  consecrated  to  God  by  devout 
parents  in  Christian  baptism.  The  concep- 
tion of  the  world  as  a  penitentiary,  where 
God  is  the  warden  and  men  and  women  are 
criminals  seeking  pardon  and  freedom,  has 
repelled  and  outlawed  the  children  of  the 
kingdom  and  the  cause  of  Christ  has  suffered 
grievous  loss.  The  attempt  to  cast  Chris- 


134      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

tian  experience  in  the  forms  furnished  by 
such  a  conception  results  in  mistaken  ideas 
of  religious  doctrines.  "When  ye  pray, 
say,  Our  Father!"  This  fundamental  con- 
ception of  the  divine  life  and  of  our  own  rela- 
tion to  it  is  to  rule  all  our  thought.  This 
world  of  men  is  meant  to  be  a  divine  fam- 
ily. The  object  of  all  God's  dealing  with  us 
is  to  induce  us  to  accept  that  fact  and  take 
our  places  in  his  family.  The  Father  is 
seeking  to  bring  his  children,  not  by  com- 
pulsion, but  by  their  conscious  choice  to 
recognize  his  love,  to  accept  his  commands, 
and  to  live  the  filial  life. 

"Ideally  and  intentionally  all  men  are 
children  of  God,  practically  and  actually 
they  are  not."  In  your  own  home  the  birth 
of  your  child  made  him  your  son  as  a  phys- 
ical fact,  but  when  he  was  eighteen  years 
old  his  sonship  did  not  rest  merely  on  the 
physical  relationship.  It  consisted  of  the 
elements  of  love,  trust,  and  obedience  out  of 
which  he  had  built  his  real  sonship  by  right 
choices.  If  he  had  been  taken  away  from 
you  the  day  after  he  was  born,  and  had  never 
seen  you  again  until  he  was  eighteen  years 
old,  the  fact  of  physical  relationship  would 
have  remained,  but  true  sonship  would 
have  been  lacking. 


CONVERSION  135 

Sonship  is  born  of  moral  experience.  God 
is  our  Father  in  that  he  is  the  Author  of 
all  lives,  but  true  sonship  toward  God  is 
attained  by  moral  experience  in  the  heart 
of  each  man.  As  the  child  must  learn  con- 
sciously to  take  his  place  in  the  human 
family  and  be  a  good  son  and  a  good  brother, 
so  every  child  born  into  the  divine  family 
must  take  his  place  through  the  love,  the 
trust,  and  the  obedience  he  comes  to  exhibit 
toward  the  Father.  This  deliberate  turning 
to  God  by  definite  choice  and  the  accept- 
ance of  one's  place  in  his  family  constitute 
conversion. 

How  was  the  Prodigal  Son  converted? 
What  did  it  mean  for  him  to  be  "born 
again"?  He  was  in  the  far  country,  hungry 
and  ragged,  mean  and  degraded.  He  finally 
came  to  himself,  realizing  that  his  mode 
of  life  was  mistaken  and  evil.  He  thought 
of  the  "bread  enough  and  to  spare"  in  his 
father's  house.  He  announced  a  new  deter- 
mination —  "I  will  arise  and  go  to  my 
father."  He  was  ready  to  confess  his  wrong 
and  ask  for  a  place  of  s.ervice.  He  carried 
out  this  decision  and,  in  coming  to  his  father, 
he  was  born  into  a  new  life.  The  father's 
welcome  and  forgiveness,  surpassing  all  that 
he  had  dared  to  hope;  the  father's  companion- 


136      THE   MAIN  POINTS 

ship,  joyously  offered  for  his  encouragement 
in  the  new  mode  of  life;  the  new  conditions 
in  the  father's  house,  widely  different  from 
those  in  the  swine  field,  and  more  inspiring 
than  the  situation  of  a  hired  servant,  all 
yielded  their  help.  But  there  was  also 
something  new  in  the  prodigal:  a  new  pur- 
pose, a  new  hope,  a  new  courage,  a  new 
sense  of  his  relation  to  the  father  —  in  a 
word,  "a  new  life."  He  was  born  again! 

It  is  the  plain  duty  of  every  wayward 
soul  thus  to  "come  home."  It  rests  with 
him  to  tell  the  Father  that  he  has  done 
wrong,  to  ask  forgiveness,  and  to  begin  to 
do  the  Father's  will.  It  is  the  part  of  every 
one  to  meet  the  Father  in  his  house,  at  his 
table,  to  speak  to  him  in  prayer;  and  on 
the  whole  wide  field  of  human  effort  to 
strive  to  do  the  Father's  will.  This  is  being 
born  again;  this  is  entering  upon  Christian 
life.  In  all  this  the  man  is  aided  by  that 
spirit  of  grace  which  is  not  far  from  any  one 
of  us  when  once  we  invite  his  help.  There- 
fore "regeneration  may  be  defined  as  that 
work  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  a  man  by  which 
a  new  life  of  holy  love,  like  the  life  of  God, 
is  initiated." 

It  was  the  habit  of  President  Finney, 
one  of  the  most  successful  evangelists  in 


CONVERSION  137 

the  history  of  American  Christianity,  to 
speak  strongly  against  the  idea  that  men  can- 
not be  converted  whenever  they  will;  that 
they  must  wait  until  something  mysterious 
is  done  for  them  with  which  they  have 
nothing  to  do.  No  man  can  come  to  Christ 
"except  the  Father  draws  him,"  but  the 
Father  is  always  drawing  him.  There  must 
be  an  "effectual  calling"  before  a  man  can 
enter  the  kingdom,  but  the  call  is  ever  sound- 
ing forth.  The  Word,  the  Spirit,  the  Church, 
the  man's  own  conscience,  all  unite  in  say- 
ing "Come."  All  things  are  now  ready  for 
Christian  life  and  service,  and  it  is  the 
plain  duty  of  every  man  to  come  home  and 
begin  to  live  the  filial  life.  No  theories 
about  substitution,  imputed  righteousness, 
or  other  dogmatic  mysteries,  dimly  under- 
stood or  half  rejected;  no  expectations  as 
to  emotions  similar  or  superior  to  a  set  of 
emotions  vouchsafed  to  some  other  return- 
ing sinner,  can  for  a  moment  stand  in  the 
way  of  that  plain  obligation  resting  on  each 
man  to  come  home.  It  is  not  his  first  busi- 
ness to  understand  "all  mysteries  and  all 
knowledge;"  it  is  not  of  great  significance 
that  he  should  have  feeling  enough  to  move 
mountains;  but  it  is  of  the  first  importance 
that  he  should  rise  and  go  to  the  Father. 


138      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

This  every  man  can  do,  and  when  he  does 
this  he  will  enjoy  the  experience  of  con- 
version. 

The  Church  has  sometimes  seemed  to 
care  more  about  its  theology  than  about 
the  religious  life  of  the  people.  It  has 
seemed  more  intent  upon  keeping  its  dog- 
matic theories  all  in  running  order  than 
upon  helping  people  to  live  as  their  Father's 
children.  When  notorious  sinners  who  have 
broken  every  one  of  the  Ten  Command- 
ments, about  face,  it  may  well  be  like  break- 
ing up  the  fountains  of  the  great  deep. 
But  the  turning  of  a  child  or  of  a  clean,  up- 
right man  to  the  Father  will  not  be  so.  If 
he  has  been  telling  the  truth,  keeping  him- 
self pure,  acting  the  part  of  kindness,  liv- 
ing in  reverence  toward  God  and  in  useful 
service  toward  men,  without  any  dramatic 
experience,  these  things  show  the  work  of 
the  Spirit  unconfessed  and  unrealized.  His 
conversion  will  be  the  clearer  recognition 
of  his  place  in  the  Father's  family  and  a 
clearer  sense  of  fellowship  with  the  Saviour 
who  aids  men  in  maintaining  that  place  by 
consistent  Christian  conduct. 

I  have  sought  to  make  it  simple,  because 
Jesus  made  it  simple  in  his  teaching  and  in 
his  own  method  of  converting  men.  It 


CONVERSION  139 

may  seem  as  if  too  large  a  place  is  given  to 
human  ability.  I  have  not  dwelt  at  length 
on  regenerating  grace.  I  shall  have  occa- 
sion to  speak  later  of  the  results  of  conver- 
sion in  the  chapter  on  Salvation  by  Faith. 
I  have  tried  to  make  this  point  clear,  that 
whenever  you  want  to  become  a  Christian 
you  can.  You  need  not  wait  for  a  day  or 
an  hour  when  something  will  happen  to 
you.  Do  your  part,  and  God  will  do  his. 
If  you  face  about  and  turn  to  the  Father, 
you  maybe  assured  of  his  recognition.  If  you 
ask  him  to  forgive  you,  he  does  it.  If  you 
implore  his  gracious  help  in  living  a  new 
life,  you  will  receive  it.  j 

How  much  emotion  you  may  experience 
will  depend  upon  your  temperament.  To 
doubt  that  a  man  is  forgiven  when  he  turns 
away  from  wrong  and  asks  forgiveness  is 
to  doubt  the  moral  character  of  God.  When 
once  you  take  your  place  in  the  Father's 
family  and  begin  to  do  what  he  would  have 
you  do,  he  accepts  you  and  aids  you  by  his 
grace.  These  gifts  of  recognition,  of  for- 
giveness, and  of  divine  grace  make  "a  new 
life."  And  that  is  what  we  mean  by  being 
"born  again,"  by  being  converted  and 
becoming  as  little  children  in  the  family 
of  the  Father. 


CHAPTER  VII 

SALVATION   BY   FAITH 

ON  first  reading  it  might  seem  that 
three  divergent  views  of  salvation 
are  put  forward  in  the  Scriptures.  Paul 
preached  "salvation  by  faith."  "By  grace 
are  ye  saved  through  faith."  "The  Gospel 
...  is  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation  to 
every  one  that  believeth."  "Believe  on 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  thou  shalt  be 
saved."  These  are  among  his  best  known 
and  most  characteristic  sayings. 

James  preached  "salvation  by  works." 
"Pure  religion  and  undefiled  before  God  and 
the  Father  is  this,  To  visit  the  fatherless 
and  widows  in  their  affliction,  and  to  keep 
himself  unspotted  from  the  world."  "What 
doth  it  profit,  though  a  man  say  he  hath 
faith,  and  have  not  works?  Can  faith  save 
him?  .  .  .  Was  not  Abraham  our  father 
justified  by  works  when  he  offered  Isaac, 
his  son,  upon  the  altar?  .  .  .  Was  not 
Rahab  the  harlot  justified  by  works,  when 
she  had  received  the  messengers,  and  had 
140 


SALVATION   BY   FAITH     141 

sent  them  out  another  way?  ...  Ye  see 
then  how  that  by  works  a  man  is  justified, 
and  not  by  faith  only."  His  words  seem  to 
set  the  matter  of  salvation  before  us  in  quite 
another  light. 

John  preached  "salvation  by  love." 
"Every  one  that  loveth  is  born  of  God." 
"We  know  that  we  have  passed  from  death 
unto  life,  because  we  love."  "If  we  love 
one  another,  God  dwelleth  in  us." 

These  three  views,  however,  are  not  antag- 
onistic but  rather  complementary  views  of 
the  same  reality.  Genuine  faith  will  utter 
itself  in  works;  effective  work  in  the  king- 
dom can  result  only  from  that  moral  atti- 
tude toward  God  which  we  call  faith.  The 
good  work  described  by  James  can  be  done 
aright  only  when  it  is  done  in  love.  And 
love,  to  be  real,  must  stand  before  God  in 
the  attitude  of  faith,  and  toward  men  in 
the  attitude  of  service.  Thus  in  any  com- 
plete view  of  salvation,  faith  and  work  and 
love  proceed  hand  in  hand. 

The  confusion  has  been  wrought  chiefly  by 
making  faith  to  mean  "theological  opinion." 
Men  are  not  saved  nor  lost  by  opinion. 
There  is  no  saving  grace  in  belonging  to 
a  certain  theological  party.  Salvation  is 
the  renewal  and  development  of  the  moral 


i42      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

life,  the  acceptance  and  cultivation  of  a 
filial  relation  to  God.  This  is  not  accom- 
plished merely  or  chiefly  by  holding  correct 
opinions.  Indeed,  "the  gentle  virtues  are 
not  plants  that  bloom  only  on  the  soil  of 
orthodoxy.  They  flourish  with  a  wonder- 
ful disdain  of  ecclesiastical  restrictions  on 
the  unhallowed  domain  of  heresy;  nay, 
are  sometimes  found  blooming  into  a  strange 
luxuriance  on  the  outlying  wastes  of 
heathendom."  l 

The  notion  of  salvation  by  opinion  has 
wrought  mischief  by  giving  people  the 
impression  that  eternal  destiny  might  turn 
upon  the  acceptance  or  refusal  of  some 
dogma,  instead  of  turning  as  it  does  upon 
moral  renewal  and  the  acceptance  of  a  filial 
relation  to  God.  On  their  death-beds,  con- 
fused souls  have  been  urged  to  say  that  they 
believed  Jesus  was  the  Son  of  God,  the 
Saviour  of  the  world,  as  if  that  expression 
of  theological  view  might  work  a  magical 
change  in  their  future  prospects. 

Faith  is  a  moral  attitude  toward  God. 
It  is  a  state  of  trust  and  self-commitment,  a 
condition  of  open  receptivity  toward  the 
mercy  God  waits  to  bestow  upon  all  who 
will  accept  it  at  his  hands.  Conversion  is 

1  John  Caird,  "University  Sermons,"  page  4. 


SALVATION   BY   FAITH     143 

the  voluntary,  conscious  turning  of  the  soul 
to  God,  and  when  this  is  done,  God  bestows 
upon  the  life  thus  offered  and  opened  to 
him  forgiveness,  recognition,  and  help.  For- 
giveness for  past  sins,  recognition  as  mem- 
bers of  the  divine  family,  and  help  in 
walking  as  children  of  the  Father:  these  are 
the  constituent  elements  of  salvation.  We 
receive  them  by  faith,  by  simply  taking  them 
as  God  offers  them. 

Your  own  child  has  his  standing  in  your 
family,  not  by  works,  not  by  the  value  of 
any  service  he  renders  you.  He  has  it 
simply  by  accepting  your  love  and  enjoy- 
ing the  help  you  give  him  for  living  his  life 
*s  a  son.  He  has  no  thought  of  trying  to 
rarn  it;  he  simply  takes  it  through  his  con- 
Wence  in  you.  By  your  love,  that  is,  "by 
grace,"  he  has  his  place  in  your  home 
through  faith.  And  that  is  what  Paul  said. 
Salvation  is  the  acceptance  of  one's  place 
in  the  family  of  God.  You  do  not  earn  it. 
It  is  not  withheld  until  the  value  of  your 
service  entitles  you  to  demand  it  by  right. 
You  simply  take  forgiveness,  recognition, 
and  help  as  they  are  offered.  "By  grace 
are  ye  saved,  through  faith." 

But  we  have  done  wrong.  We  cannot  be 
dealt  with  as  children  who  have  remained 


144      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

obediently  in  the  Father's  house.  Let  us 
say  then  that  your  boy  has  left  your  home. 
He  is  living  in  some  far  country  with  evil 
associates.  He  is  going  further  and  further 
in  his  wrong  career.  What  do  you  do? 
You  entreat  him  to  come  home.  You 
assure  him  that  you  are  ready  to  forgive 
him,  to  receive  him  as  your  son  and  to 
help  him  live  a  new  life  if  he  will  only  turn 
from  his  wrong  way.  You  offer  him  salva- 
tion by  faith. 

But  he  insists  that  he  is  not  good  enough 
to  come  home;  that  his  life  is  stained  with 
evil;  that  he  has  insulted  you  by  his  course 
of  conduct.  He  urges  that  he  be  allowed 
to  remain  where  he  is  until  he  has  ironed 
out  the  moral  wrinkles  and  become  good 
enough  to  return.  He  promises  you  that 
when  this  has  been  accomplished  he  will 
come.  He  advances  the  view  of  salvation 
by  ethical  culture  or  by  good  works. 

But  you  insist  that  he  shall  come  home  at 
once,  not  because  of  any  desert  on  his  part, 
but  because  you  love  him  and  desire  to 
bestow  on  him  forgiveness,  recognition,  and 
help  and  thus  work  with  him  for  his  salva- 
tion. If  he  accepts  your  favor  without 
waiting  to  earn  it,  he  is  saved  by  faith.  | 

The  parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son  yields  a 


SALVATION    BY   FAITH     145 

simple,  usable  theology.  A  messenger  to 
the  far  country  would  have  reminded  the 
prodigal  that  his  father  still  loved  him  and 
stood  ready  to  forgive  him  if  he  would  return 
home  and  take  his  place  again  in  the  family. 
And  when  the  son  turned  his  back  upon 
evil,  and  made  open  confession,  the  father 
forgave  him  instantly  and  accepted  him 
into  the  family.  He  began  at  once  to  aid 
and  bless  him  in  his  new  life  at  home. 
"Bring  forth  the  best  robe,"  he  cried,  "and 
a  ring  and  shoes,  and  kill  the  best  calf;  for 
this  my  son  was  dead  and  is  alive  again. 
He  is  saved  by  his  faith  in  his  father's  love 
and  by  his  return  home."  This  is  the  scrip- 
tural view  of  salvation  —  not  by  works  nor 
by  opinion  nor  by  ceremonies,  but  by  faith 
in  the  great  fact  that  God  is  ready  to  for- 
give his  children  who  have  done  wrong,  to 
restore  them  to  the  family,  and  to  aid  them 
in  living  lives  of  righteousness. 

We  expect  good  conduct  of  our  children, 
as  a  result  of  their  standing  within  our  love, 
but  they  take  their  places  in  the  home  by 
an  act  of  faith.  Their  present  good  conduct 
is  prompted  by  that  normal  and  wholesome 
relationship.  This  indicates  the  relation 
between  faith  and  works.  We  are  members 
of  the  divine  family,  not  because  of  what 


i46      THE    MAIN   POINTS 

we  have  done  in  giving  a  tenth  of  our  income 
to  the  Lord,  or  in  showing  ourselves  kind  and 
pure  and  true  in  our  dealings  with  men,  or 
in  being  faithful  attendants  at  church;  we 
are  members  of  the  divine  family  simply 
because  we  accepted  the  invitation  of  his 
love.  We  turned  to  the  Father,  we  opened 
our  hearts  and  received  his  forgiveness, 
recognition,  and  help;  and  now  the  good  serv- 
ice we  render  flows  out  of  this  relation  estab- 
lished by  our  confidence  in  God's  grace. 

The  truth  of  salvation  by  faith  was  recog- 
nized by  the  psalmist.  "Thou  desirest  not 
sacrifice;  else  would  I  give  it:  thou  delight- 
est  not  in  burnt  offering.  The  sacrifices  of 
God  are  ...  a  broken  and  a  contrite 
heart."  Forgiveness  could  not  be  purchased 
by  burnt  offerings.  The  man  who  needed 
it  could  not  earn  it  by  any  kind  of  service. 
He  could  only  come  with  a  contrite  heart, 
and  freely  accept  it.  Salvation  by  faith 
was  the  appointed  way. 

The  truths  of  religion  have  been  obscured 
by  priestly  forms.  Men  were  offering  sac- 
rifices and  burnt  offerings,  they  were  washing 
their  cups  and  pots,  tithing  their  salt,  their 
pepper,  and  their  mustard  as  if  these  were 
matters  of  life  and  death.  Jesus  must  come 
and  make  known  afresh  the  everlasting  gos- 


SALVATION   BY   FAITH     147 

pel  —  God  so  loved  the  world  as  to  give  his 
Son;  and  men  are  saved  by  believing  on 
him,  by  taking  what  he  freely  gives,  and  by 
following  him  in  lives  of  service. 

The  Roman  Catholic  Church  overlaid 
religion  with  cumbrous  forms  until  it  became 
again  a  thing  of  penance  and  ceremony,  of 
mortifications  and  masses  to  earn  the  favor 
of  God.  Again  it  became  necessary  to  clean 
house  and  burn  the  ecclesiastical  rubbish. 
Luther  came  and  on  his  painful  pilgrimage 
saw  what  a  caricature  of  the  gospel  the 
Roman  system  was.  He  aroused  Germany 
and  all  the  more  aspiring  parts  of  Europe 
with  his  doctrine  of  "salvation  by  faith." 
The  forgiveness,  the  recognition,  the  help 
of  God  are  never  bought  from  a  priest,  nor 
purchased  through  ceremony,  nor  earned 
by  penances;  they  must  be  freely  accepted 
as  the  gift  of  God. 

In  our  reading  of  history  we  find  no  great 
revival  of  religion,  except  through  the  simple, 
fearless  preaching  to  a  sinful  world  of  this 
gospel  of  "salvation  by  faith."  It  was 
the  theme  of  Paul  and  of  Chrysostom,  of 
Luther  and  of  Wesley,  of  Edwards  and  of 
Finney.  Salvation  was  proclaimed  as  the 
free,  unpurchasable  gift  of  God,  and  faith 
was  defined  as  the  human  act  of  taking  it. 


i48      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

We  find  an  effective  illustration  of  sal- 
vation by  faith  in  Victor  Hugo's  "Les 
Miserables."  Jean  Valjean  had  been  a  gal- 
ley-slave. He  felt  that  all  men  despised  him 
and  that  society  would  never  forgive  him 
for  having  committed  crime.  He  was 
released  at  the  end  of  his  sentence,  but  he 
found  the  taverns  turned  him  from  their 
doors,  men  refused  to  employ  him,  the  very 
dogs  snarled  upon  him  if  he  sought  to  sleep 
in  their  kennels.  He  went  to  the  Bishop's 
house  and  the  good  man  took  him  in.  The 
Bishop  called  him  "Monsieur,"  treated  him 
as  a  man,  gave  him  the  best  place  at  table, 
and  the  choicest  room  in  his  house.  The 
Bishop  knew  the  man  had  been  a  galley- 
slave,  but  he  forgave  him,  recognized  him 
as  a  brother  man,  offered  him  help  in  the 
living  of  a  new  life. 

Had  Jean  Valjean  earned  it?  He  had 
never  done  anything  for  the  Bishop.  Did 
the  convict  gain  that  benefit  by  his  theo- 
logical opinions?  Heaven  knows  what  his 
opinions  were  —  they  taught  ho  theology 
in  the  galleys.  The  Bishop  freely  offered 
his  favor  and  Jean  Valjean  accepted  it.  It 
was  a  sure  word  of  gospel  truth  for  him. 
It  was  the  beginning  of  his  salvation.  He 
saw  in  this  servant  of  God  a  picture  of  God's 


SALVATION  BY  FAITH    149 

own  willingness  to  forgive  and  to  help  men 
who  have  done  wrong.  He  accepted  this 
heaven-sent  good  news  and  pressed  forward 
into  Christian  service.  The  beginning  of  it 
all  was  the  Bishop's  preaching,  by  word  and 
by  deed,  the  simple  doctrine  of  salvation 
by  faith.  By  grace,  not  by  opinions,  nor  by 
ceremonies,  nor  by  works,  but  by  grace, 
are  men  saved  through  faith. 

Men  have  erred  in  thinking  of  faith  as 
something  which  the  soul  could  exercise 
once  for  all,  a  single  assent  to  some  plan  or 
proposition  upon  which  the  man  became  a 
saved  man  forever  after.  Faith  is  a  con- 
stant moral  attitude  toward  God.  "The 
just  shall  live  by  faith."  It  is  the  abiding 
relation  of  the  soul  to  God.  •,••„•  .. 

How  plain  this  is  when  we  turn  to  the 
method  of  Jesus!  How  did  he  save  men? 
He  went  to  the  home  of  a  stingy,  grasping, 
unjust  tax-gatherer,  who  had  not  even 
asked  him  to  come.  Zacchaeus  did  not  know 
how  much  he  needed  Christ,  so  Christ 
invited  himself  as  a  matter  of  grace.  It 
touched  the  heart  of  the  publican.  "This 
great  teacher,  whom  men  call  the  Son  of 
God,  comes  to  me,  recognizes  me,  sits  down 
at  meat  with  me  whom  men  despise  because 
I  am  a  publican!"  In  the  course  of  their 


ISO      THE   MAIN  POINTS 

conversation  Zacchaeus  sees  life  in  a  new  way. 
He  becomes  a  changed  man  under  the  influ- 
ence of  Christ's  fellowship.  Before  Jesus 
goes  away  the  sinful  publican  is  moved  to 
say,  "Lord,  if  I  have  taken  anything  from 
any  man  falsely,  I  restore  him  fourfold.  I 
have  lived  a  grasping,  stingy  life,  but  now 
the  half  of  my  goods  I  give  to  the  poor." 
And  Jesus  said,  "This  day  is  salvation  come 
to  this  house.  Zacchaeus  also  is  a  child  of 
Abraham,  a  member  of  the  family  of  God." 
Zacchaeus  had  not  earned  his  salvation. 
He  turned  away  from  his  wrong-doing.  He 
announced  a  new  intention  for  the  future. 
He  gladly  accepted  the  forgiveness,  recog- 
nition, and  help  that  Jesus  offered.  The 
work  of  moral  recovery  is  not  obscured  by 
any  insistence  upon  penance,  ceremony,  or 
mortification.  There  was  no  demand  made 
for  any  particular  opinions  about  substitu- 
tion or  governmental  expedients  or  the  like. 
The  one  thing  that  had  value  was  the 
straightforward  acceptance  of  that  gift  of 
new  life  which  Christ  offered  and  ever  offers 
to  those  who  will  take  it  at  his  hands.  And 
it  is  this  gift  of  new  life  freely  offered  and 
freely  received  which  brings  renewed  charac- 
ter and  a  filial  relation  in  the  family  of  the 
Father. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE    CHRISTIAN    CHURCH 

IN  certain  quarters  we  hear  men  speaking 
in  glowing  terms  of  Christ  and  then  with 
the  last  half  of  the  same  breath  denouncing 
his  Church.  We  are  told  with  hearty  con- 
fidence that  it  does  not  matter  whether 
people  have  ever  been  baptized,  taken  com- 
munion, or  belonged  to  the  Church  —  that 
on  the  whole  it  is  better  for  them  not  to 
have  done  any  of  these  churchly  things. 

It  might  be  well  to  remind  those  who 
laud  Christ  and  deride  his  Church  that 
this  was  not  his  own  attitude.  The  Church 
of  his  day  does  not  seem  to  have  been  so 
sincere,  so  efficient  in  humane  activity, 
nor  so  well-stocked  with  simple,  every-day 
righteousness,  as  is  the  average  church  of 
our  own  time.  Yet  it  was  his  custom  to 
enter  the  synagogue  on  the  Sabbath.  He 
observed  the  appointed  feasts  of  the  national 
Church.  He  utilized  the  opportunities  it 
offered  for  moral  effort. 

And   this   same  Jesus,   who  taught   "the 


152      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

Fatherhood  of  God  and  the  brotherhood  of 
man,"  at  the  close  of  his  life  sent  his  apostles 
"to  disciple  all  nations,  and  to  baptize  them 
in  the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son, 
and  of  the  Holy  Ghost."  The  only  place 
where  this  command  is  being  taken  seriously 
is  in  the  Church  of  Christ.  The  same  Jesus 
who  told  men  to  love  God  and  to  love  their 
neighbors,  instituted  the  Lord's  Supper  and 
gave  the  command,  "This  do  in  remembrance 
of  me."  The  only  place  where  this  com- 
mand is  being  obeyed,  and  the  sacrament 
regularly  and  devoutly  observed,  is  in  the 
Church.  There  would  seem  to  be  a  certain 
confusion  in  the  minds  of  those  who  praise 
Christ  and  then  denounce  his  Church  as  a 
needless  incumbrance  in  the  modern  world. 

Jesus  announced  in  definite  terms  his  pur- 
pose to  build  a  Church.  He  saw  many  com- 
ing and  going  who  held  various  theories 
about  him,  and  in  varying  degrees  cherished 
admiration  for  his  work.  Close  beside  him 
was  one  who  loved  him,  trusted  him,  and  in 
a  degree  understood  him.  In  response  to 
an  inquiry  from  the  Master,  this  man  made 
a  promising  confession  of  his  faith.  In 
this  personal  attitude  Christ  saw  the  hope 
of  the  future.  In  recognition  of  it,  he  said, 
alluding  to  Peter's  name,  which  means  "a 


CHRISTIAN   CHURCH     153 

stone,"  "Upon  this  rock  of  personal  loyalty 
and  trust  I  will  build  my  Church,  and  the 
gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail  against  it." 

The  Scriptures  speak  of  "the  Church  of 
the  living  God,"  a  body  of  people  sustaining 
a  special  relation  to  him.  They  call  the 
Church  "the  pillar  and  ground  of  the  truth." 
It  is  "the  household  of  God,"  the  family 
circle  of  the  heavenly  Father.  It  is  "the 
body  of  Christ,"  the  visible  organism  through 
which  Christ  works;  the  field  for  the  mani- 
festation of  his  glory;  the  chosen  instrument 
for  accomplishing  his  moral  purpose;  the 
transforming  agency  by  which  the  common 
materials  of  human  life  are  taken  up  and 
ennobled  by  the  spiritual  energy  resident 
in  the  Church. 

The  Church  is  the  body  of  Christ.  What 
a  glorious  conception!  It  is  a  revealing- 
place  for  the  Spirit  of  Christ.  In  the  atti- 
tude of  its  members  toward  one  another  and 
toward  the  need  of  the  world,  men  are  to 
see  the  love  of  God.  The  Church  furnishes 
eyes  and  lips,  hands  and  feet,  for  the  Spirit 
of  Christ.  Its  members  see  the  opportu- 
nity and  speak  in  clear  tones  the  gospel  of 
hope.  They  go  upon  his  errands  of  mercy 
and  labor  effectively  for  the  relief  of  human 
need.  The  Church  is  a  transforming  agency 


154      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

where  earthly  men  are  taken  up  and,  by  the 
force  of  that  transfiguring  Spirit  which  dwells 
in  all  bodies  of  true  believers,  they  are 
changed  into  energy  of  a  higher  sort.  The 
relation  which  the  physical  body  of  Jesus 
sustained  to  his  Spirit  of  old  is  now  sus- 
tained by  his  Church.  In  proportion  to  its 
consecration,  its  faith  and  its  responsive- 
ness to  the  touch  of  his  Spirit,  the  Church 
attains  this  high  estate. 

The  Church  serves  to  keep  alive  the  sense 
of  God  in  the  world.  Its  very  buildings 
serve  this  purpose.  You  pass  along  a  cer- 
tain street  in  your  city  calling  the  atten- 
tion of  visitors  to  the  residences  of  its  vari- 
ous citizens.  You  pass  a  church  and  inform 
your  friends  that  this  is  "the  house  of 
God."  He,  too,  is  resident  there,  mingling 
his  thought  and  energy  in  the  city  life.  The 
building  itself  and  the  services  there  main- 
tained make  men  conscious  of  his  presence. 
Men  felt  the  love  of  the  Father  when  Jesus 
stood  among  them,  and  to  produce  a  like 
experience  today  is  one  of  the  offices  of  the 
Church,  which  is  his  body. 

The  Church  stimulates  the  sense  of  devo- 
tion and  of  obligation  to  do  God's  will  in 
all  the  relations  of  common  life.  Ethics 
rest  upon  their  surest  foundation  when  right 


CHRISTIAN   CHURCH     155 

and  wrong  are  seen  to  be  distinctions  between 
that  which  is  and  that  which  is  not  the  will 
of  God.  And  in  proportion  to  their  sense 
of  companionship  and  cooperation  with  the 
Author  and  Rewarder  of  good,  are  men  made 
strong  to  practise  right  precepts. 

The  Church  is  the  organized  Christianity 
of  the  community.  In  fulfilling  its  office 
as  the  visible  body  of  Christ,  it  brings  the 
hands,  the  feet,  the  eyes,  and  the  lips  to- 
gether and  organizes  them  for  united  action. 
If  the  Christian  religion  is  to  assert  itself, 
every  practical  man  can  see  that  it  must  be 
organized.  Every  one  who  believes  in  the 
value  of  that  religion  should  be  in  the  organ- 
ization. "An  impartial  examination  of  the 
influence  of  organized  religion  upon  society 
abundantly  discloses  the  fact  that  the  most 
continuous,  steady,  frank,  and  powerful 
force  in  ethical  fields  is  exercised  by  the 
substantially  uniform  moral  action  of  our 
churches.  Society  confidently  counts  upon 
organized  religion  to  champion  every  thor- 
oughly ethical  question  which  arises.  Soci- 
ety invariably  turns  to  the  churches  when 
some  extraordinary  issue  demands  an  untir- 
ing, undaunted  advocate."  l 

1  E.  Winchester  Donald,  "The  Expansion  of  Religion," 
page  278. 


iS6      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

Political  beliefs  are  made  effective  by 
organized  parties.  Wage-earners  make  their 
cause  known  and  further  its  interests  as 
they  stand  together  in  organized  effort. 
The  combination  of  commercial  interests 
into  trusts  is  one  of  the  signs  of  the  times. 
The  man  who  believes  in  the  religion  of 
Christ,  but  does  not  belong  to  the  Church 
is  disobedient  to  the  teachings  of  the  New 
Testament  and  is  absurd  in  his  attitude. 
If  you  had  met  a  man  on  Broadway  during 
the  Spanish  War,  carrying  a  musket,  but 
with  no  uniform,  insisting  that  he  was  a 
soldier  on  his  way  to  Cuba,  your  first  ques- 
tion would  have  been,  "To  what  company 
and  regiment  do  you  belong?  Where  is 
your  uniform?"  He  might  have  replied, 
"I  do  not  belong  to  any  regiment;  I  make  no 
professions  and  wear  no  uniform.  I  simply 
wish  to  go  out  by  myself  and  do  what  I  can 
against  the  Spaniards."  The  folly  of  his 
position  would  have  made  you  laugh.  He 
would  not  only  have  failed  in  doing  his 
own  best;  his  example  and  presence,  had  he 
been  allowed  to  go  to  the  front,  would 
have  been  demoralizing  to  the  army  itself. 

In  like  manner  the  men  who  sympathize 
with  the  purposes  of  the  Christian  Church 
and  yet  lack  the  clear-sighted  manliness  to 


CHRISTIAN  CHURCH    157 

come  in  and  identify  themselves  with  some 
part  of  its  organized  activity,  forfeit  a  large 
measure  of  their  own  usefulness  and  allow 
themselves  to  become  a  hindrance  to  the 
most  effective  work.  The  Church  is  relig- 
ion organized  and  ready  to  take  the  field. 

The  Church  is  a  school  of  Christian 
character  ready  to  do  its  work.  There  are 
those  who  insist  that  they  do  not  need  to  at- 
tend church  —  they  can  be  religious  at  home. 
They  could  teach  their  children  at  home,  but 
on  the  whole  the  public  schools  are  more 
effective.  The  teachers  are  not  all  sages,  but 
they  render  a  service  which  could  not  easily 
be  supplied  in  any  other  way.  He  would 
be  a  foolish  man  who  would  turn  away  from 
schools,  colleges,  and  public  libraries  on 
the  ground  that  a  little  learning  might  be 
hammered  out  on  his  own  little  anvil  at 
home.  Men  can  be  religious  at  home,  but 
how  many  of  those  who  habitually  absent 
themselves  from  church  spend  an  hour, 
morning  and  evening,  on  Sunday,  in  reading 
the  Scripture,  in  prayer,  in  serious  atten- 
tion to  some  phase  of  Christian  duty  and 
privilege?  The  ministers  are  neither  sages 
nor  angels,  yet  they  are  competent  to  teach 
the  people  among  whom  they  live,  scriptural 
and  helpful  views  of  life  and  duty.  Relig- 


158      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

ion  is  their  major  study.  It  would  be 
strange  if  the  Church  were  not  able,  by  its 
music,  its  lessons,  its  prayers,  and  its  ser- 
mons, to  lift  the  thought  and  aspiration  of  a 
congregation  to  higher  levels. 

The  Church  is  here  because  of  the  neces- 
sities of  the  people.  "The  new  life  of  ser- 
vice and  sacrifice,  brought  to  the  world  by 
Christ  and  begotten  in  us  by  the  Spirit, 
at  once  demands  a  socially  effective  organiza- 
tion and  expression,  that  those  who  share 
this  life  may  be  bound  closer  together;  that 
the  enthusiasm  of  it  may  be  kept  alive; 
that  the  members  who  share  it  may  be 
increased;  and  that  those  who  are  losing  it 
may  be  brought  to  share  its  blessings  and 
its  privileges."  Without  such  an  organized 
expression  of  its  real  life  and  purpose  for  the 
world,  the  religion  of  Jesus  could  not  exert 
its  wholesome  sway  over  the  hearts  of  men. 

Organized  religion  would  be  more  effect- 
ive had  it  not  broken  itself  into  so  many 
pieces.  We  deplore  the  multitude  of  denom- 
inations and  the  consequent  struggling 
churches.  The  demand  for  variety  will 
remain.  Certain  temperaments  enjoy  more 
ritual,  other  temperaments  less;  some  are 
more  hospitable  to  new  ideas,  others,  less; 
some  trust  the  people  more  and  have  simple 


CHRISTIAN   CHURCH     159 

democratic  forms  of  government,  others 
prefer  the  rule  of  presbyteries  or  of  bishops. 

But  this  demand  for  variety  has  been 
overworked.  It  has  multiplied  sects  need- 
lessly and  has  created  ugly  rivalries.  The 
sects  are  not  abusing  one  another  as  once 
they  did,  but  in  many  a  city  and  town  there 
is  an  unseemly  scramble  for  the  ear  and  the 
support  of  the  people.  In  a  public  confer- 
ence one  pastor  boasted  that  he  had  just 
induced  three  Methodists,  two  Presbyte- 
rians, four  Baptists,  and  one  Episcopalian 
to  forsake  their  former  affiliations  and  become 
members  of  his  sect.  He  spoke  of  it  as  a 
victory.  But  getting  four  soldiers  trans- 
ferred from  Company  A  to  Company  B 
does  nothing  to  strengthen  the  army.  It 
may  weaken  the  army  if  changes  are  so  fre- 
quent as  to  subvert  discipline.  In  many 
communities  there  is  an  undignified,  unchris- 
tian strife  to  get  the  lion's  share  of  the  relig- 
iously disposed  people. 

The  demand  for  Christian  unity  is  impera- 
tive. The  platform  laid  of  old  was  "One 
Lord,  one  faith,  one  baptism."  Might  we 
not  stand  together  on  that  fundamental 
basis  ? 

"One  Lord"  —  we  have  different  theories 
about  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  about 


i6o      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

the  effect  of  his  death.  But  look  abroad 
among  Catholics  and  Protestants,  the  ortho- 
dox and  the  liberal,  in  all  parts  of  Christen- 
dom it  is  that  "One  Lord"  who  holds  sway 
over  the  thought,  the  aspiration,  and  the 
obedience  of  men. 

"One  faith"  —  there  are  many  opinions, 
but  the  one  moral  attitude  toward  God 
which  is  saving  in  its  effect  is  an  attitude  of 
trust,  obedience,  and  love;  and  that  type  of 
faith  in  the  mercy  of  God  as  revealed  in 
Christ  is  common  to  all  Christians. 

"One  baptism"  —  not  that  of  water,  be 
it  by  little  or  by  much,  but  the  baptism  of 
the  Holy  Spirit,  cleansing  and  renewing  the 
heart,  of  which  water  is  merely  the  outward 
sign.  This  is  the  common  reliance  of  all 
true  Christians. 

On  these  fundamentals  we  are  one.  This 
might  not  serve  as  a  sufficiently  definite  basis 
for  Church  unity,  but  the  mere  reference 
to  these  familiar  words  and  the  substantial 
agreement  in  all  the  churches  touch- 
ing their  significance  indicates  how  the  divi- 
sions have  come  mainly  by  emphasizing 
things  which  are  not  essential. 

The  formal  attempts  at  Church  unity  have 
thus  far  been  disappointing.  But  we  can 
serve  the  good  cause  by  keeping  to  the  front 


CHRISTIAN   CHURCH     161 

the  vital  things  whereon  we  agree  and  by 
leaving  non-essentials  in  the  rear  until  the 
statute  of  limitations  can  be  pleaded  against 
them.  "It  is  in  spiritual  passion  and  action 
and  not  in  speculation  and  argument  that 
human  beings  find  themselves  marching  side 
by  side  in  the  same  great  cause,  their  hearts 
beating  to  the  same  hope  and  harmony. 
There  is  no  measuring  the  power  of  a  com- 
mon passion  for  righteousness  to  consume 
differences,  to  enlighten  willing  minds,  to 
fuse  and  unify  self-sacrificing  energy." 
Through  this  growing  passion  for  righteous- 
ness, which  overshadows  doctrinal  differ- 
ences, we  may  confidently  expect  that  the 
Church  of  the  future  will  be  nobly  careless 
about  many  minor  points  where  wise  and 
good  men  differ;  it  will  be  earnestly  insist- 
ent upon  the  weightier  matters  of  character 
and  service.  / 

In  our  home  missionary  and  foreign  mis- 
sionary work  the  divided  Church  has 
brought  criticism  and  defeat.  "If  the  gro- 
cery trade  were  carried  on  in  country  towns 
as  the  religious  business  is,  there  would  be 
ten  stores  where  only  three  are  needed, 
each  one  full  of  a  cheap,  defective  stock  of 
goods  and  on  the  verge  of  bankruptcy.  If 
education  were  carried  on  in  the  same  way, 


162      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

there  would  be  one  school  where  all  the 
teachers  were  Democrats,  another  where  they 
all  believed  in  the  nebular  hypothesis,  an- 
other where  they  were  all  anti-expansionists 
perhaps."  The  fundamental  things  which 
schools  are  set  to  teach  form  one  body 
of  elementary  instruction.  The  message 
of  the  churches  to  a  sinful  world  need- 
ing the  mercy  of  God  in  Christ  for  its 
forgiveness  and  renewal,  for  its  upbuilding 
in  righteousness  and  guidance  in  useful 
service,  is  essentially  one. 

In  foreign  missionary  work  especially  it  is 
hard  to  understand  why  we  have  not  been 
ready  to  divide  and  conquer,  to  assign  cer- 
tain fields  to  certain  branches  of  the  Church 
by  mutual  agreement,  rather  than  duplicate 
or  overlap  our  efforts.  It  is  confusing  to  a 
non-Christian  community  to  be  called  upon 
to  decide  upon  the  claims  of  Christian  bap- 
tism by  a  handful  of  water  or  by  a  tankful; 
to  pass  upon  the  claims  of  a  man  who  was 
ordained  by  a  bishop  and  the  claims  of  one 
who  was  ordained  by  elders.  The  differ- 
ences which  we  have  wrestled  over  and  found 
petty  here  at  home  need  not  be  exported 
to  harass  other  races  of  Christian  pilgrims. 

And  in  home  missionary  work  the  denom- 
inations have  been  foolish  and  wicked  in 


CHRISTIAN   CHURCH     163 

multiplying  organizations  in  small  towns 
that  every  style  of  sectarian  appetite  might 
be  furnished  with  the  special  meat  for  which 
its  soul  lusteth.  An  unholy  rivalry  between 
the  branches  of  Christ's  Church  and  the 
petty  insistence  of  his  followers  upon  their 
particular  forms  to  the  detriment  of  the 
wider  interests  of  his  kingdom,  have 
repeatedly  lessened  the  Church's  power  of 
moral  appeal. 

But  in  spite  of  the  shortcomings  of  the 
Church,  which  those  within  understand  and 
lament,  there  is  a  great,  glad  sense  of  privi- 
lege in  being  a  part  of  this  organized  Chris- 
tianity. We  have  the  sense  of  sharing  in  a 
great,  corporate  life.  "We  belong  to  the 
Church."  The  words  are  spoken  so  lightly, 
and  yet  how  much  they  mean!  My  hand 
"belongs"  to  my  body.  It  is  incorporated 
with  it  for  good  or  ill,  for  health  or  for  pain, 
to  participate  in  its  service,  to  share  in  its 
weariness  and  to  advance  with  it  into  what- 
ever joy  or  honor  may  come.  The  man 
who  "belongs  to  the  Church"  becomes  thus 
vitally  incorporate  with  the  body  of  Christ. 

It  is  a  loss  to  any  soul  to  lack  this  sense 
of  union  with  the  great  body  of  aspiring 
men.  It  must  be  strange  for  any  one  to 
travel  in  Europe,  visiting  the  mighty  cathe- 


164      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

drals  reared  by  religious  aspiration;  behold- 
ing masterpieces  of  painting  and  sculpture 
wrought  out  under  the  stimulus  of  religious 
emotion;  hearing  the  music  of  the  best  ora- 
torios, or  the  opera  of  "Parsifal,"  with 
religion  for  their  theme;  and  to  feel  through- 
out that  he  is  a  stranger  and  a  foreigner  in 
his  relation  to  the  mighty  kingdom  where 
all  this  was  produced.  He  is  not  a  natural- 
ized citizen  in  that  kingdom  of  God  which 
stands  for  so  much  enrichment  in  the  world's 
history.  The  noblest  life  cannot  be  lived 
thus  detached.  Healthy  and  vigorous  relig- 
ious life  "must  find  institutional  expression. 
To  talk  of  spiritual  life  apart  from  the  Church, 
its  worship  and  its  service,  is  like  talking  of 
patriotism  while  refusing  allegiance  to  any 
country." 

Here  we  have  an  institution  into  which 
Jesus  Christ  wrought  his  own  purpose  — 
"On  this  rock  I  will  build  my  Church!" 
Here  we  have  an  institution  commended  by 
one  of  the  most  forceful  and  useful  men  of 
his  generation,  as  "the  pillar  and  ground  of 
the  truth!"  Here  we  have  an  institution 
to  which  some  of  the  best  minds  and  noblest 
hearts  in  history  have  gladly  given  the  ser- 
vice of  their  lives  —  Augustine  and  Origen, 
Francis  of  Assisi  and  Thomas  a  Kempis, 


CHRISTIAN   CHURCH     165 

Savonarola  and  Martin  Luther,  John  Knox 
and  John  Wesley,  Jonathan  Edwards  and 
Charles  G.  Finney,  Horace  Bushnell  and 
Henry  Ward  Beecher,  Dwight  L.  Moody 
and  Phillips  Brooks!  Here  we  have  an  in- 
stitution which,  with  all  its  faults,  has 
stood  through  the  ages  for  "the  struggle  of 
the  spiritual  against  the  physical,  of  faith 
against  force,  of  the  poor  and  obscure  against 
their  haughty  oppressors,  of  that  which  is 
founded  in  the  divine  order  against  that 
which  springs  from  human  self-will!"  Here 
we  have  an  institution  which  at  this  hour 
is  more  openly  pledged  to  the  highest  spir- 
itual ideals  and  more  steadily  engaged  in 
urging  them  upon  the  people  than  any 
other  institution  on  earth! 

In  the  presence  of  an  institution  founded 
by  Christ,  served  by  many  of  the  noblest 
spirits  in  history,  consecrated  to  the  real- 
ization of  the  highest  ideals,  how  blind  it 
seems  for  any  one  possessed  of  a  ray  of  spir- 
itual aspiration  to  say,  touching  the  worship 
and  the  instruction,  the  fellowship  and  the 
service  of  this  mighty  institution,  "  I  have  no 
need  of  you."  The  systematic  cultivation 
of  the  sense  of  the  Unseen,  the  habit  of  wait- 
ing upon  the  Lord  of  strength  for  the  renewal 
of  one's  strength,  the  joy  of  mingling  one's 


i66      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

aspirations  with  those  of  his  fellows  in  a 
hymn,  a  song,  a  prayer,  or  an  aspiration, 
the  wide  opportunity  for  the  investment  of 
one's  abilities  in  active  service  —  all  these 
are  demanded  for  the  fullest  and  noblest 
type  of  life.  Into  the  enjoyment  of  all 
this  the  Church  sets  before  us  an  open  door. 

The  Church  organizes  and  socializes  that 
all  but  universal  aspiration  of  the  human  to 
relate  itself  consciously  to  the  Unseen.  It 
is  an  aspiration  as  old  as  time  and  as  wide  as 
the  world.  The  soul  which  willingly  secludes 
itself  from  that  endeavor  suffers  unspeak- 
able loss. 

I  have  listened  reverently  to  the  service 
of  the  Mass  according  to  the  Roman  Cath- 
olic ritual  in  St.  Peter's  at  Rome;  I  have 
heard  a  hundred  men  chanting  the  service  of 
the  Greek  Church  in  the  Cathedral  of  the 
Kremlin  at  Moscow;  and  I  have  heard  a 
choir  of  Indian  boys  sing  the  same  Grego- 
rian chants  in  a  Russian  mission  on  the  west 
coast  of  Alaska.  I  have  witnessed  the  mid- 
night service  on  Good  Friday  at  the  Cathe- 
dral of  the  Greek  Church  in  Athens,  and 
I  have  heard  the  call  to  prayer  from  the 
minaret  and  have  seen  devout  Moslems  pros- 
trate in  worship  at  the  Mosque  of  St.  Sophia 
in  Constantinople.  I  have  studied  the  stolid 


CHRISTIAN   CHURCH     167 

faces  of  the  Chinese  in  their  joss-houses  in 
old  Shanghai;  I  have  watched  the  Buddhist 
priests  conducting  the  worship  of  devout 
Japanese  in  the  great  Hongwanji  Temple 
in  Kyoto,  and  I  have  watched  the  tear- 
stained  faces  of  devout  Jews  pouring  out 
their  hearts  in  prayer  before  that  fragment 
of  the  old  temple  enclosure  at  the  "Jews' 
Wailing  Place"  in  Jerusalem. 

In  every  case  the  mode  of  worship  and 
the  language  in  which  it  was  expressed  were 
utterly  unlike  my  own,  yet  the  spirit  of 
what  I  saw  in  them  all  was  akin  to  what  I 
find  in  my  own  breast.  In  the  sense  of 
dependence  upon  and  of  kinship  with  the 
Unseen,  in  the  deep  yearning  and  longing 
after  an  effective  fellowship  with  the  Divine, 
we  were  all  one!  How  incomplete  and 
abnormal  I  should  feel  if  in  all  my  purposes 
and  habits  I  had  no  part  with  them  in  this 
widespread  and  persistent  hunger  of  the 
heart!  The  deepest  and  truest  instincts 
of  my  nature  bid  me  turn  to  the  Church 
which  organizes  and  socializes  this  universal 
aspiration. 

We  were  told  in  advance  by  the  Founder 
of  the  Church  that  it  would  have  its  faults. 
The  tares  grow  with  the  wheat.  Animals 
get  into  the  fold,  which  look  like  sheep  but 


168      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

are  not.  Men  say,  "Lord,  Lord,"  whom 
Christ  does  not  own,  for  they  hear  his  say- 
ings and  do  them  not.  Men  who  remain 
out  of  the  Church  waiting  until  it  shall 
clear  itself  of  its  faults  will  stay  out  some 
time.  The  only  way  to  have  a  perfect 
Church  is  to  stop  admitting  human  beings 
as  members. 

But  those  who  stand  apart  from  the 
Church  on  such  grounds  are  absurd  in  their 
action.  The  man  who  desires  an  educa- 
tion does  not  wait  until  he  finds  a  school 
where  all  the  professors  and  all  the  students 
know  everything.  He  does  not  look  for 
one  where  the  pupils  all  learn  their  lessons 
perfectly  and  never  forget  them.  He  finds 
an  institution  where  the  teachers  are  intel- 
ligent, earnest,  and  sincere  about  their  work; 
where  the  students  are  serious  in  their  desire 
to  learn;  and  with  such  a  school  he  casts  in 
his  lot.  The  Church  is  a  school  for  Chris- 
tian character  and  the  "disciples,"  as  Jesus 
called  them,  the  learners  or  pupils,  are  under 
the  personal  tuition  of  the  Master  and  of 
that  body  of  influences  established  in  his 
Church. 

The  excuses  offered  for  remaining  out  of 
the  Church  are  weak.  The  men  who  say 
they  "are  not  good  enough"  to  join  the 


CHRISTIAN   CHURCH     169 

Church  would  imply  that  a  boy  should  never 
go  near  a  bicycle  until  he  has  learned  to 
ride.  The  Church  stands  with  open  doors 
to  welcome  those  who  are  conscious  that  they 
are  "not  good  enough,"  and  aid  them  in  the 
attainment  of  that  higher,  holier  life  which 
rises  before  them  as  a  commanding  ideal. 

The  man  who  insists  he  can  be  "just  as 
good  outside  of  the  Church"  is  stupid.  If 
all  men  followed  his  selfish  method,  there 
would  be  no  churches.  Churches  are  sus- 
tained and  made  effective  by  the  loyal  ser- 
vice of  their  members.  Their  ministers 
are  taken  from  the  membership  of  the 
churches.  If  all  remained  outside,  there 
would  be  no  churches;  people  would  be  mar- 
ried by  justices  of  the  peace,  buried  with- 
out the  Scripture  lesson  or  the  prayer;  there 
would  be  no  body  of  believers  to  wel- 
come the  little  child  with  the  sacrament 
of  baptism;  there  would  be  none  of  these 
useful  centers  for  worship  and  instruc- 
tion, for  religious  fellowship  and  charitable 
activity. 

There  are  few  people  in  all  the  millions 
of  our  population  who  would  welcome  such 
a  condition.  They  would  not  wish  to  live 
a  year  in  a  churchless  city.  Real  estate 
would  fall  in  price;  public  morals  would  be 


170      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

lowered;  children  and  adults  would  suffer 
incalculable  loss  if  the  churches  were  closed. 
Yet  thousands  of  people  live  in  such  a  way 
that  if  all  men  acted  as  they  are  acting 
touching  the  Church,  the  nation  would  be 
churchless.  The  man  who  remains  outside 
on  the  theory  that  he  can  be  just  as  good  a 
Christian  without  assuming  the  responsi- 
bilities of  church  membership  is  a  coward 
and  a  shirk. 

Yonder,  at  the  Pacific  Mail  Dock  in  San 
Francisco,  lies  the  great  steamer  Man- 
churia. When  she  comes  up  to  the  pier, 
she  has  the  look  of  one  who  has  accom- 
plished something.  She  has  come  all  the 
way  from  Hongkong  through  storm  and 
wind.  She  has  brought  her  precious  freight 
of  passengers,  business  men  returning  to 
their  families,  missionaries  returning  for  a 
visit  to  the  homeland,  scientists  who  have 
been  opening  up  new  regions  by  exploration. 
She  comes,  carrying  in  her  hold  a  splendid 
cargo  of  tea  and  silk,  teakwood  and  lacquer, 
and  all  the  riches  of  the  Orient. 

And  down  under  the  water,  huddled  out 
of  sight,  are  a  few  barnacles  clinging  for 
their  lives  to  the  side  of  the  ship.  They  seem 
to  say,  "We,  too,  are  here!  We  also  have 
made  the  voyage  of  seven  thousand  miles." 


CHRISTIAN   CHURCH     171 

They  feel  that  somehow  they  share  in  the 
Manchuria's  honor. 

In  like  manner  Christian  civilization  under 
the  moral  leadership  of  the  Church  of  Christ, 
with  all  its  precious  freight,  with  messages 
of  hope  and  love,  with  a  mighty  cargo  of 
help  for  nobler,  fuller  life,  with  its  sailing 
list  of  devoted  men  and  women,  bearing 
upon  their  shoulders  the  cause  of  human 
progress,  moves  out  to  other  lands,  invades 
the  frontiers,  discharges  holy  influences  in 
every  community,  carrying  within  it  the 
hope  of  mankind.  There  are  in  every  com- 
munity many  who  never  enroll  themselves 
as  passengers,  never  become  members  of 
the  crew,  never  walk  its  decks  as  professing 
to  share  in  the  movement.  Like  the  bar- 
nacles on  the  Manchuria  they  selfishly 
cling  to  this  Christian  civilization  which 
holds  advantages  for  their  business,  which 
ministers  protection  and  help  for  their 
children,  which  nobly  conserves  all  that 
makes  life  worth  living,  yet  they  refuse  to 
share  in  its  deeper  responsibilities.  They 
are  barnacles  stuck  on  from  without;  they 
are  parasites  and  non-producers  in  this 
work  of  Christian  progress. 

We  have  laid  such  stress  upon  individ- 
ualism, in  this  new  country  of  political 


172      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

equality  and  of  unparalleled  personal  oppor- 
tunity, that  we  have  but  dimly  apprehended 
the  value  of  institutionalism.  We  need  a 
deeper  sense  of  the  fact  that  the  individ- 
ual only  realizes  himself  through  combina- 
tion with  other  individuals  in  institutional 
life. 

When  the  Hebrews  returned  from  Baby- 
lon and  undertook  the  rebuilding  of  the 
walls,  their  sense  of  corporate  life  was  deep- 
ened. "Every  man  built  over  against  his 
own  house,"  but  with  the  glad  sense  that 
the  portion  of  wall  laid  in  place  by  his  own 
hands  helped  to  guard  the  commercial  and 
domestic  interests  of  all  the  other  men  in 
the  city;  and  he  in  turn  relied  for  his  own 
completer  safety  upon  the  work  of  all  his 
fellows  as  they  built  over  against  their 
houses.  The  very  task  of  thus  performing 
that  individual  service  in  the  accomplish- 
ment of  a  vast  design  gave  the  sense  of 
moral  solidarity. 

This  sense  of  participation  in  a  larger 
movement  uncovered  for  each  man  an  abid- 
ing source  of  motive  and  stimulus.  When  he 
took  his  particular  brick,  the  act  seemed 
insignificant  —  the  brick  was  only  a  bit  of 
burnt  clay.  But  when  the  brick  went  into 
a  wall,  relating  itself  to  millions  of  other 


CHRISTIAN   CHURCH     173 

bricks;  when  the  wall  surrounded  a  city  as 
its  main  defense;  when  the  city  was  Jeru- 
salem, the  headquarters  of  the  Hebrew 
people  who  have  woven  themselves  into  the 
higher  life  of  the  world  as  no  other  nation 
has,  then  the  simple  act  became  invested 
with  a  mighty  significance. 

The  building  of  one's  personal  activities, 
simple  though  they  were,  into  the  far-reach- 
ing, solid  wall  of  a  divine  purpose  ennobled 
them.  Every  man,  as  he  laid  his  tale  of  bricks 
in  place,  felt  that  there  was  being  worked  out, 
now  in  joy  and  now  in  tears,  now  in  rapid 
progress  and  now  in  painful  but  educative 
delay,  now  through  the  stately  ceremonies 
of  the  priest,  now  by  the  living  word  of  the 
prophet,  now  by  the  ordinary  service  of  the 
consecrated  layman,  now  on  the  banks  of 
the  Jordan  and  now  in  the  valley  of  the 
Nile,  now  along  the  shores  of  Galilee  and 
now  by  the  rivers  of  Babylon,  a  great  divine 
purpose  for  humanity.  Each  man  who 
yielded  his  life  to  the  impulse  to  serve,  was 
aiding  in  the  consummation  of  that  vast 
design.  In  like  manner  the  individual  who 
builds  his  life  into  some  great  institution 
like  the  Christian  Church  adds  immeasurably 
to  its  significance  by  thus  incorporating  his 
personal  activities  with  a  world-wide  and 


174      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

age-long   movement   for   the   moral   welfare 
of  the  race. 

The  perfect  Church  is  yet  to  be.  The 
Church  has  never  yet  had  offered  to  it  that 
abundance  or  that  quality  of  material  which 
would  enable  it  to  build  worthily  "the 
body  of  Christ."  To  fulfil  the  high  purpose 
expressed  for  it,  the  Church  must  reach  the 
point  where  its  face  shall  shine  with  the 
splendor  seen  on  the  holy  mount  of  old;  its 
lips  must  speak  forth  matchless  words 
which  embody  the  thought  of  God;  its  feet 
must  be  swift  to  go  on  errands  of  love  and 
its  hands  nimble  and  strong  to  work  the 
works  of  Him  who  builds  it.  For  all  this 
it  demands  material  abundant  and  worthy, 
offered  in  loving  consecration.  It  needs 
energy  and  intelligence,  affection  and  devo- 
tion, money  and  service  placed  at  the  call 
of  the  Spirit  of  Christ,  who  is  building  the 
Church  as  the  body  of  his  habitation.  What 
a  sacred  honor  to  offer  one's  life,  in  whole- 
hearted consecration,  to  be  thus  taken  up 
and  built  into  that  body  which  shall  stand 
forth  as  the  dwelling-place  of  the  Divine 
Spirit!  In  that  glorious  consummation  it 
will  be  seen  that  "the  Tabernacle  of  God  is 
with  men." 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE    HOPE   OF    IMMORTALITY 

ONE  can  scarcely  ask  a  more  searching 
or  a  more  practical  question  than  the 
one  propounded  by  Job  —  "If  a  man  die, 
shall  he  live  again?"  In  making  our  plans, 
in  determining  our  principles  of  action,  and 
in  furnishing  the  heart  with  motives,  we 
are  profoundly  influenced  by  the  answer 
given  to  this  inquiry. 

Am  I  to  live  my  threescore  years  and  ten 
and  then  become  extinct?  Or  am  I  to  live 
straight  on,  this  earthly  period  of  existence 
being  merely  the  first  term  in  a  course  of 
education  that  will  have  no  end? 

The  reply  which  each  man  makes  is  to 
be  read,  not  in  some  high-flown  sentiment 
uttered  upon  occasion,  but  rather  in  the 
things  upon  which  he  sets  his  heart,  in  the 
courses  of  action  he  maps  out.  It  may  be 
well  to  eat,  drink,  and  be  merry,  in  open 
indifference  to  loftier  interests,  if  tomorrow 
we  die  and  come  to  the  end  of  it  all.  But 
if  the  results  of  our  choices  and  deeds  are 


176      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

endlessly  carried  forward  in  personal  con- 
sciousness, then  life  is  another  matter.  In 
view  of  the  vital  interests  bound  up  with  the 
reply  we  make  to  Job's  inquiry,  it  is  wise  to 
consider  carefully  the  grounds  upon  which 
thoughtful  men  base  their  hope  of  immor- 
tality. 

There  are  no  "proofs  of  immortality." 
Even  for  those  who  accept  the  resurrection 
of  Jesus  Christ  as  a  historical  fact,  this 
notable  victory  over  death  does  not  "prove" 
that  all  men  will  rise  again.  The  plain 
declarations  of  inspired  men  and  of  Jesus 
himself  touching  the  future  life  are  not 
"proofs"  —  they  depend  for  their  force  upon 
the  measure  of  moral  faith  we  cherish  toward 
them. 

If  we  should  accept  the  claims  of  the 
spiritists,  who  on  a  notable  occasion  pro- 
fessed to  hold  communion  with  the  departed 
spirit  of  Senator  Sherman  when  the  news- 
papers had  erroneously  announced  his  death, 
only  to  discover  the  next  morning  that  he  was 
still  alive  and  aboard  ship  instead  of  lending 
his  ghostly  presence  to  needy  seance-holders, 
we  should  still  be  without  proof  of  our 
personal  immortality. 

"The  fact  that  some  men  have  survived 
death  does  not  prove  that  all  must.  A  flock 


IMMORTALITY  177 

of  sheep  come  to  a  river.  A  number  of  them 
swim  safely  across  and  bleat  to  their  brethren 
behind,  telling  them  as  plainly  as  can  be 
that  they  still  live;  nevertheless  the  sheep 
who  have  not  yet  tried  the  river  seem  a 
good  deal  excited.  The  question  with  them 
is,  not  whether  others  have  survived  the 
beat  and  wash  of  the  stream,  but  whether 
they  shall  survive.  That  is  not  proved  and 
in  the  nature  of  the  case  cannot  be.  An 
intelligent  member  of  the  flock,  having 
known  the  weakness  of  many  of  its  brethren 
who  report  that  they  have  safely  crossed  the 
flood,  and  wisely  judging  its  own  superior 
strength,  might  feel  comfortably  sure  of 
survival.  Spiritism,  even  if  accepted  as 
authentic,  cannot  yield  demonstration.  It 
still  leaves  those  who  have  not  tasted  death 
in  the  sphere  of  moral  faith."1  From  the 
very  necessities  of  the  situation,  therefore, 
our  belief  in  immortality  cannot  rest  on 
proofs.  It  must  rest  on  faith  in  certain 
considerations.  It  may  be  just  as  well  — 
"the  best  things  are  felt  rather  than  proved." 
f-  But  if  there  is  no  actual  proof  of  the  truth 
of  the  positive  claim,  neither  is  there  any 
proof  of  the  correctness  of  the  negative 

'George  A.  Gordon,    "Immortality  and    the   New  The- 
odicy," page  6. 


178      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

position.  It  is  well  to  rid  our  minds  of  the 
idea  that  the  denial  of  immortality  is  based 
on  actual  knowledge.  One  of  the  most 
eminent  scientific  men  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  Thomas  H.  Huxley,  said,  "Science 
has  not  a  shred  of  evidence  that  the  soul 
does  not  live  on  after  death.  When  denial 
of  that  claim  is  made,  it  is  sheer  theory  and 
assumption." 

The  denial  of  a  future  life  is  never  based 
on  knowledge;  it  is  simply  a  negative  form 
of  belief.  In  order  to  declare  the  doctrine 
of  immortality  false,  men  would  have  to 
ransack  all  space  and  know  to  a  certainty  that 
there  are  nowhere  in  conscious  existence 
those  human  beings  who  once  walked  the 
earth.  But  no  one  has  this  knowledge;  no 
one  can  have  it.  Whatever  reasons  there  are 
for  holding  this  negative  form  of  belief  are 
to  be  carefully  considered,  but  its  adherents 
need  not  try  to  throw  dust  in  our  eyes  by 
pretending  that  it  is  a  case  of  knowledge 
against  faith.  The  field  is  open,  and  that 
form  of  belief,  positive  or  negative,  which 
shows  the  best  grounds  for  its  expectation, 
is  free  to  take  possession. 

Into  this  open  field  I  introduce  four  lines 
of  argument.  The  first  I  call  psychological. 
The  wish  to  live  on  after  death,  the  all  but 


IMMORTALITY  179 

universal  instinct  for  immortality,  is  highly 
significant. 

"It  must  be  so  —  Plato,  thou  reasonest  well!  — 
Else  whence  this  pleasing  hope,  this  fond  desire, 
This  longing  after  immortality?" 

We  have  pushed  our  investigations  back 
until  some  scientific  men  make  bold  to  say 
that  the  human  race  has  been  on  the  earth 
for  one  hundred  thousand  years.  Among 
those  prehistoric  men  we  find  the  custom  of 
burying  the  trinkets,  the  weapons,  the  tools 
of  the  dead  man  with  his  body  —  mute  testi- 
mony to  their  belief  that  he  would  need  them 
in  that  future  life  to  which  he  had  gone. 
For  a  hundred  thousand  years,  it  may  be,  this 
belief  in  a  hereafter  has  persisted. 

May  we  not  apply  the  doctrine  of  "the 
survival  of  the  fittest"  to  forms  of  belief? 
If  all  men  want  to  breathe  and  keep  on 
wanting  to  breathe  for  a  hundred  thousand 
years,  does  it  not  argue  that  there  is  air 
answering  to  that  need?  If  all  men  hunger 
and  keep  on  hungering  for  a  hundred  thou- 
sand years,  does  it  not  raise  the  presumption 
that  there  is  food  for  them?  The  Creator 
does  not  perpetually  send  these  native  and 
universal  desires  upon  fools'  errands.  The 
divine  appointments  have  somehow  kept 


i8o      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

faithful  tryst  with  the  profound  and  persist- 
ent needs  of  human  nature.  If  the  longing 
after  immortality  has  been  developed,  has 
persisted  and  grown  stronger  through  the 
operation  of  these  forces  which  have  their 
way  with  us,  without  an  actual  reality 
standing  over  against  that  desire,  it  intro- 
duces an  extraordinary  break  in  the  method 
of  the  universe. 

More  than  that,  it  has  been  the  human 
mind  at  its  best,  which  has  insisted  most 
strongly  upon  the  truth  of  immortality. 
The  great  poets — Homer,  Virgil  and  Dante, 
Milton  and  Wordsworth,  Tennyson  and 
Browning  —  how  they  sang  of  the  life 
beyond  the  grave!  The  great  philosophers 
—  Socrates  and  Plato,  Kant  and  Hegel  — 
writing  their  names  indelibly  upon  the  pages 
of  serious  inquiry,  how  they  clung  to  the  idea 
of  the  persistence  of  the  spiritual  element 
in  man!  The  great  founders  of  religions  — 
Zoroaster,  Mahomet,  Jesus  of  Nazareth  — 
how  strong  was  their  faith  in  the  world  to 
come!  The  great  statesmen,  who  by  the 
impress  of  their  personalities  have  molded 
the  lives  of  nations — Cicero  and  Cromwell, 
Lincoln,  Bismarck  and  Gladstone  —  how 
strong  they  were  in  their  confidence  that 
death  is  not  the  end! 


IMMORTALITY  181 

The  human  mind  has  not  only  persisted 
for  these  thousands  of  years  in  that  hope  and 
expectation;  when  it  rose  to  its  highest 
level  and  was  illumined  by  the  purest  aspira- 
tion, it  has  shown  itself  most  ready  to  make 
positive  reply  to  the  question  of  living  again. 
It  would  cast  contempt  upon  the  great 
process  which  has  produced  these  convictions, 
preserved  them,  clarified  them,  to  call  its 
fruitage  an  empty  delusion.  It  would  cast 
aspersion  upon  the  validity  of  our  mental 
life  and  impeach  the  integrity  of  the  universal 
order  which  has  wrought  this  result,  should 
we  undertake  to  deny  the  fact  of  immortality, 
for  which  these  ages  of  aspiring  men  have 
yearned. 

The  second  line  of  argument  I  call  analog- 
ical. The  two  scientific  doctrines  known  as 
the  "indestructibility  of  matter"  and  "the 
conservation  of  energy"  are  widely  accepted. 
The  form  of  matter  changes,  but  the  sub- 
stance of  the  universe  is  neither  increased  nor 
decreased.  The  form  of  energy  may  be 
altered  from  motion  to  heat  and  from  heat 
to  light,  but  the  energy  persists. 

Do  senseless  atoms  thus  endure  while 
conscious,  thinking  spirits,  standing  higher 
in  the  scale  of  existence,  perish?  Do  these 
manifestations  of  energy,  seen  in  combustion 


182      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

or  in  a  falling  body,  continue  in  some  form 
undiminished,  but  the  forms  of  energy 
which  make  up  conscious  personality  utterly 
decay?  The  attempt  to  establish  such  a 
theory  in  the  face  of  the  present  mental 
attitude  on  these  questions  will  prove  a 
difficult  task. 

Matter  is  —  let  him  who  can,  prove  that 
it  will  cease  to  be!  No  one  has  proved  it. 
The  best  belief  of  the  day  looks  quite  the 
other  way.  I  am  alive  —  let  him  who  can 
prove  that  I  shall  ever  cease  to  be!  The 
burden  of  proof  is  upon  him.  The  form  may 
change  so  that  I  no  longer  manifest  myself 
through  this  familiar  body,  but  in  some 
form,  I,  too,  endure. 

Hear  the  word  of  John  Fiske,  a  distin- 
guished interpreter  of  the  doctrine  of 
evolution,  "The  more  thoroughly  we  com- 
prehend that  process  of  evolution  by  which 
things  have  come  to  be  what  they  are,  the 
more  we  are  likely  to  feel  that  to  deny  the 
everlasting  persistence  of  the  spiritual  ele- 
ment in  man  is  to  rob  the  whole  process  of 
its  meaning.  It  would  go  far  toward  putting 
us  to  permanent  intellectual  confusion.  For 
my  own  part,  therefore,  I  believe  in  the 
immortality  of  the  soul  as  a  supreme  act 
of  faith  in  the  reasonableness  of  God's  work." 


IMMORTALITY  183 

Progress  is  the  law  of  life.  The  story  of 
the  past  is  the  record  of  the  ascent  to  higher 
and  ever  higher  levels  of  finite  existence. 
Investigation  reveals  nothing  higher  than 
man.  It  seems  incredible  that,  having  come 
so  far,  we  should  not  go  farther.  To  urge 
that  God  is  perpetually  destroying  this  sen- 
sitive bond  between  the  created  world  and 
himself,  by  the  perpetual  extinction  of  souls 
who  have  learned  to  rejoice  in  their  coopera- 
tion with  him,  makes  a  staggering  demand 
upon  our  credulity.  The  anticipation  awak- 
ened within  our  hearts  by  the  creative 
purpose  points  the  way  of  faith  toward 
belief  in  a  race  of  immortal  men,  to  crown 
and  complete  the  work  begun. 

The  third  line  of  argument  springs  from 
moral  considerations  as  they  rise  to  their 
higher  levels.  The  voices  which  echo  against 
the  walls  of  our  hearts  bid  us  attain  that  for 
which  this  present  life  offers  no  adequate 
opportunity.  The  Master  of  moral  values 
said,  "Be  ye  therefore  perfect,  even  as  your 
Father  which  is  in  heaven  is  perfect!" 
Human  aspiration  at  its  best  takes  up  his 
word  and  utters  the  same  call,  "Be  perfect!" 
Poetry  and  song  utter  the  same  summons, 
"Be  perfect!  "^ The  logic  of  growth  says, 
"Go  on,  and  on,  and  on  —  be  perfect!" 


184      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

Are  these  high  commands  which  fall  upon 
our  ears  not  meant  to  be  obeyed?  Are  they 
but  sent  to  mock  our  incompleteness?  Such 
high  demands  can  only  be  met  where  further 
life  affords  the  adequate  opportunity. 

Faith  in  a  future  life  is  demanded  for  the 
utmost  development  of  the  moral  nature 
here.  Study  the  results  of  the  affirmation 
of  the  truth  of  immortality  upon  broad 
fields  of  human  experience,  and  compare 
them  with  the  chilling,  numbing  effect  of 
the  denial  of  that  truth!  Men  become 
steadfast,  unmovable,  always  abounding  in 
the  work  of  the  Lord,  when  they  feel  that 
their  labor  is  not  in  vain  in  the  Lord. 

Would  any  one  say  that  this  faith  in  a 
hereafter  thus  necessary  to  the  broad  develop- 
ment of  moral  steadfastness,  heroism,  self- 
sacrifice,  is  a  faith  founded  on  an  eternal 
mistake,  while  the  denial  of  this  claim  with 
its  chilling  effect  upon  spiritual  enthusiasm 
is  the  sober  truth?  In  such  event,  it  would 
seem  that  the  things  that  are  not  mightier 
than  the  things  that  are.  Saints  and 
seers,  heroes  and  martyrs,  bravely  bearing 
the  heat  and  burden  of  many  a  hard  day, 
unite  in  their  testimony  to  the  helpfulness 
of  the  hope  of  immortality.  They  could 
not  have  wrought  thus  valiantly  had  they 


IMMORTALITY  185 

not  lived  by  "the  power  of  an  endless  life." 
And  until  the  world  can  believe  that  grapes 
grow  from  thorns  and  figs  from  thistles,  it 
will  hesitate  to  attribute  such  moral  fruitage 
to  an  ill-founded  delusion.  ' 

Raphael  would  not  have  used  the  utmost 
of  his  artistic  ability  in  painting  the  Sistine 
Madonna  had  he  believed  some  vandal 
would  cut  it  to  shreds  the  day  it  was  finished. 
Beethoven  would  not  have  taxed  his  musical 
ability  to  the  utmost  in  composition,  had  he 
not  hoped  that  his  melodies  and  harmonies 
might  go  singing  their  way  down  the  ages. 
The  great  masters  of  literary  expression 
would  not  have  spent  their  vitality  in  speech 
and  verse  had  they  believed  their  manuscripts 
would  be  committed  to  the  flames  unread. 

Plain  men  and  women,  bearing  the  heat 
and  burden  of  many  a  hard  day,  cannot  be 
relied  upon  to  lift  their  ideals  "up  to  the 
style  and  manner  of  the  sky  "  unless  they, 
too,  are  firmly  persuaded  that  for  them  and 
for  those  they  serve  there  is  a  future  life. 
Immortality  is  a  demand  of  our  moral 
nature.  To  deny  it  is  to  say  that  the  deepest 
intimations  of  conscience  are  false  and  that 
the  highest  moral  success  in  history  has 
been  made  possible  by  the  cherishing  of 
delusion. 


186      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

The  fourth  line  of  argument  is  theological. 
Here  and  there  shadows,  forbidding  and 
inexplicable,  lie  heavy  upon  the  fair  fields 
of  human  experience.  But  in  spite  of  them 
we  discern  the  presence  of  a  moral  order 
lying  beneath.  The  laws  of  life  are  good, 
for  if  these  laws  were  perfectly  understood 
and  rightly  obeyed,  life  would  be  noble, 
beautiful,  joyous.  Then  the  Author  of  these 
laws  must  be  good,  since  he  has  thus  estab- 
lished them  in  the  world  we  know.  In  view 
of  everything,  we  feel  a  profound  assurance 
that  when  the  returns  are  all  in,  it  will  be 
seen  that  the  Judge  of  all  the  earth  has  done 
right. 

But  can  he  do  right  with  individual  men 
and  women,  unless  there  be  a  future  life? 
Look  upon  the  blotches  of  unreason  and 
injustice,  unexplained  and  unexplainable, 
unless  there  be  scrolls  of  human  experience 
yet  to  be  unrolled!  Sin  and  meanness  un- 
punished as  yet!  Fidelity  and  unselfishness 
unrewarded!  Puzzling  and  blinding  situ- 
ations issuing  apparently  in  nothing  of 
worth!  Disciplinary  experiences  bravely 
borne  by  heroic  souls,  reasonable  enough 
if  they  serve  as  preparation  for  higher  states 
of  being,  but  meaningless  and  useless  if  the 
moral  results  are  wiped  from  the  slate  by 


IMMORTALITY  187 

the  extinction  of  those  who  bore  them! 
"Shall  not  the  Judge  of  all  the  earth  do 
right?"  Shall  not  the  moral  order,  which 
we  dimly  discern,  vindicate  itself  at  last 
to  every  soul? 

Our  faith  in  immortality  springs  from  our 
faith  in  the  moral  integrity  of  God.  If 
behind  these  phenomena  there  is  neither 
intelligence  nor  moral  purpose,  then  might 
we  come  at  last  to  feel  that  death  ends  all. 
But  the  moment  we  rise  to  faith  in  the  moral 
character  of  God,  immortality  seems  sure. 

Could  you  take  your  own  child,  brought 
into  the  world  by  your  own  act,  trained  by 
experiences  pleasant  and  severe,  allowed  and 
encouraged  to  believe  that  he  would  live 
to  man's  estate,  and  then  at  some  point  in 
his  development  thrust  him  away  into  eter- 
nal nothingness?  If  ye  then,  being  evil, 
know  the  moral  rights  of  your  children,  and 
feel  your  obligations  toward  them,  what 
shall  we  say  of  the  moral  obligation  of  him 
who  created  us,  allowed  and  encouraged  us 
to  hope  for  further  life?  How  could  he 
deny  himself  by  thrusting  away  his  own! 

"Thou  wilt  not  leave  us  in  the  dust: 

Thou  madest  man,  we  know  not  why: 
He  thinks  he  was  not  made  to  die. 
And  thou  hast  made  him?    Thou  art  just!" 


i88      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

Weigh  these  four  lines  of  argument  as 
affording  warrant  for  cherishing  the  posi- 
tive rather  than  the  negative  belief  touch- 
ing immortality!  Hold  the  four  of  them 
together  —  the  universal  desire  of  men  at 
their  best  to  live  on  after  death  in  a  world 
where  universal  and  persistent  desires  find 
over  against  them  the  means  of  satisfaction; 
the  analogy  between  the  persistence  of 
matter  and  energy  and  the  persistence  of 
that  higher  form  of  existence  known  as 
consciousness,  as  the  necessary  outcome  of 
the  evolutionary  process;  the  moral  necessity 
for  adequate  opportunity  to  render  complete 
obedience  to  the  high  commands  which  are 
laid  upon  us  and  the  moral  fruitage  of  the 
positive  as  against  the  negative  attitude 
toward  the  future  life;  the  plain  implications 
of  a  moral  order  which  stands  as  the  abiding 
expression  of  a  wise  and  just  God!  Hold 
the  four  of  them  together  and  clasp  them 
with  the  serene  faith  of  Jesus  Christ  in 
immortality,  and  somehow  these  five  consid- 
erations become  a  mighty  hand,  clasping 
the  inner  life  with  reassuring  grip! 

The  desire  for  immortality  is  so  strong 
that  if  the  intellectual  objections  are  dis- 
armed, the  fortunes  of  such  a  faith  may 
safely  be  left  to  the  human  heart.  Two 


IMMORTALITY  189 

main  impediments  seem  to  stand  in  the 
way  of  such  a  hope.  We  cannot  readily 
understand  how  life  continues  after  the  body 
has  perished  in  the  swift  consumption  of  the 
crematory,  or  in  the  slower  processes  of  the 
cemetery.  Life  seems  to  come  to  an  end. 
The  heart  stops,  the  breath  ceases,  the  eyes 
no  longer  see,  nor  do  the  ears  hear;  there  is 
no  response  to  any  kind  of  stimulus.  How 
can  life  survive  the  change  and  dissolution 
wrought  by  death!  £ 

But  if  we  could  stand  at  any  crucial 
point  in  the  unfolding  creation,  we  should 
witness  changes  as  extraordinary.  When 
the  universe  was  an  unorganized  mass  of 
swirling  star  dust,  how  impossible  seemed  the 
orderly  system  of  stars,  planets,  and  worlds! 
When  this  solid  earth  was  a  molten  mass 
like  that  seen  in  the  crater  of  Kilauea,  on 
the  Island  of  Hawaii,  how  impossible  seemed 
the  verdure,  the  trees,  the  flowers,  and  the 
countless  forms  of  sentient  life!  Life  abun- 
dant on  a  globe  once  lifeless  is  a  problem 
which  baffles  the  scientist. 

When  the  highest  modes  of  life  on  earth 
were  those  huge  forms  of  the  Jurassic  or 
of  the  Pliocene,  gross  and  brutish,  how 
impossible  it  seemed  that  there  should  be 
found  here  a  Milton  and  a  Shakespeare! 


190      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

Advances  have  been  made  which  we  would 
have  deemed  incredible  could  we  have  stood 
as  wondering  witnesses  of  preceding  condi- 
tions. In  the  face  of  what  has  occurred,  it 
is  not  hard  to  believe  that  the  Creator  has 
in  store  that  farther  advance  in  the  scale  of 
life,  pictured  in  the  Scriptures  as  a  race  of 
immortal  beings  fulfilling  his  purpose  in 
the  completion  of  these  lives  possessed  of 
moral  aspiration. 

We  have  thus  far  known  conscious  per- 
sonality only  in  connection  with  physical 
organism.  How  consciousness  survives  the 
shock  of  the  physical  changes  and  destruction 
which  death  involves,  proves  a  burden 
serious  to  be  borne  by  many  who  would 
believe,  but  ask  some  wiser  man  to  help 
their  unbelief.  It  brings  us  face  to  face  with 
the  whole  mystery  of  personal  consciousness. 

But  a  human  being  is  more  than  a  physical 
organism.  There  was  a  time  in  the  history 
of  every  man  when  the  germ  of  life  from 
which  he  developed  could  not  have  been 
distinguished  under  the  microscope  from  the 
germ  of  an  ape  or  of  a  dog.  What  made 
the  difference?  Something  apparently  that 
the  microscope,  adjusted  to  hunt  down 
particles  of  matter  the  most  minute,  cannot 
discover.  This  being  came  to  have  intel- 


IMMORTALITY  191 

lectual  stature,  moral  sense,  humanity,  by 
reason  of  some  mysterious  endowment  not 
discoverable  in  the  material  organism  in  its 
early  stages.  It  is  this  something,  tran- 
scending the  material  structure  and  differ- 
entiating man  from  the  lower  animals,  which 
is  destined  to  survive  the  shock  of  death. 

To  affirm  the  truth  of  immortality  imposes 
upon  us  the  hard  task  of  picturing  the  con- 
tinuance of  personality  after  the  dissolution 
of  a  physical  organism  now  uniformly 
associated  with  it.  But  to  deny  it,  when 
we  are  surrounded  with  other  problems 
mysterious  and  unsolvable  to  present  insight, 
involves  us  in  so  much  greater  intellectual 
and  moral  difficulty  that  reason  bids  us 
follow  our  deepest  instinct  in  cherishing  the 
hope  of  future  life. 

This  point  is  well  argued  by  William 
James  in  his  Ingersoll  lecture  on  immor- 
tality. He  discusses  the  difference  between 
productive  and  transmissive  function. 
"Thought  is  a  function  of  the  brain,"  men 
have  said.  No  brain,  no  thought;  no 
thought,  no  consciousness  —  and  therefore, 
they  urge,  no  life  after  death  has  destroyed 
the  brain.  But  may  it  not  be  that  thought 
is  a  function  of  the  brain  as  speech  is  a 
function  of  the  vocal  organs?  These  organs 


I92      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

do  not  produce  the  tones  of  song  or  speech; 
they  receive  air  from  the  lungs;  and  back 
of  that  is  the  invisible  spirit  of  the  man 
which  determines  whether  the  tones  shall 
be  those  of  love  or  hate.  The  function  of 
the  vocal  organ  is  only  a  transmissive 
function. 

In  like  manner  music  is  a  function  of  the 
pipe-organ.  The  organ  does  not  originate  the 
music.  It  receives  air  under  pressure  from 
outside  itself,  and  it  is  manipulated  by  a 
player  altogether  independent  of  it.  Even 
though  the  organ  might  be  destroyed  by 
fire,  the  organist  would  remain  to  play  upon 
another  organ  which  would  replace  it.  So 
the  distinguished  psychologist  argues  that 
the  function  of  the  brain  is  transmissive  — 
upon  "its  delicate  gray  keys"  the  unseen 
organist,  the  spirit  of  the  man,  plays  life's 
noblest  music.  And  though  the  organ 
perish  in  the  swift  processes  of  the  retort  or 
in  the  slow  processes  of  the  grave,  the  or- 
ganist remains.  "The  sphere  of  being  which 
furnished  a  conscious,  self-directing  player 
for  this  subtle  organ,  which  we  call  the 
brain,  is  still  intact  and  able  to  supply  for  it 
another  organ  in  ways  unknown  to  us." 

It  is  also  suggested  that  the  burden  of 
believing  in  immortality  for  the  countless 


IMMORTALITY  193 

hordes  that  live  now  and  have  lived  becomes 
a  bar  to  faith.  "The  incredible  and  intoler- 
able number  of  beings  which,  with  our 
modern  imagination,  we  must  believe  to 
be  immortal,  if  immortality  be  true,  is  a 
stumbling-block  to  many."  The  ignorant, 
the  base,  the  half-savage  among  our  remote 
ancestors,  the  Hottentots  and  Eskimos, 
why  should  they  live? 

The  adherents  of  that  doctrine  known  as 
"conditional  immortality,"  or  the  annihila- 
tion of  the  unregenerate,  are  freed  from  this 
embarrassment  by  their  aristocratic  view  of 
immortality.  In  line  with  the  survival  of 
the  fittest,  they  hold  that  eternal  life  is  for 
the  best  of  us  with  quiet  extinction  for  the 
rest.  But  this  narrower  hope  has  not  won 
for  itself  any  significant  adherence. 

"Bone  of  our  bone  and  flesh  of  our  flesh 
are  these  half-brutish,  prehistoric  brothers. 
Girdled  about  with  the  immense  darkness  of 
this  mysterious  universe  even  as  we  are, 
they  were  born,  and  died,  suffered,  and 
struggled.  Given  over  to  fearful  crime  and 
passion,  plunged  in  the  blackest  ignorance, 
preyed  upon  by  hideous  and  grotesque 
delusions,  yet  steadfastly  serving  the  pro- 
foundest  of  ideals  in  their  fixed  faith 
that  existence  in  any  form  is  better  than 


194      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

non-existence,  they  ever  rescued  triumph- 
antly from  the  jaws  of  imminent  destruction 
the  torch  of  life,  which,  thanks  to  them,  now 
lights  the  world  for  us.  How  small  indeed 
seem  individual  distinctions  when  we  look 
back  on  these  overwhelming  numbers  of 
human  beings  panting  and  straining  under 
the  pressure  of  that  vital  want!  And  how 
unessential  in  the  eyes  of  God  must  be  the 
small  surplus  of  the  individual's  merit, 
swamped  as  it  is  in  the  vast  ocean  of  the 
common  merit  of  mankind,  humbly  and 
undauntedly  doing  the  fundamental  duty 
and  living  the  heroic  life!  We  grow  humble 
and  reverent  as  we  contemplate  the  pro- 
digious spectacle.  An  immense  compassion 
and  kinship  fill  the  heart.  An  immortality 
from  which  these  inconceivable  billions  of 
fellow  strivers  should  be  excluded  becomes 
an  irrational  idea  for  us.  That  our  superior- 
ity in  personal  refinement  or  in  religious 
creed  should  constitute  a  difference  between 
ourselves  and  our  messmates  at  life's 
banquet  fit  to  entail  such  a  consequential 
difference  of  destiny  as  eternal  life  for  us, 
and  for  them  torment  hereafter  or  death  with 
the  beasts  that  perish,  is  a  notion  too  absurd 
to  be  considered  serious."  1 

1  James,  "Human  Immortality,"  page  33. 


IMMORTALITY  195 

And  besides  all  this  instinct  of  brotherli- 
ness,  we  may  believe  that  God  "has  so 
inexhaustible  a  capacity  for  love  that  his 
call  and  need  is  for  a  literally  endless  accumu- 
lation of  created  lives.  He  can  never  faint 
nor  grow  weary  as  we  should  under  the 
increasing  supply.  His  scale  is  infinite  in  all 
things.  His  sympathy  can  never  know 
satiety  or  glut.  .  .  .  The  tiresomeness  of  an 
overpeopled  heaven  is  a  purely  subjective 
and  illusory  notion,  a  sign  of  human  inca- 
pacity, a  remnant  of  the  old,  narrow-hearted, 
aristocratic  creed.  The  inner  significance 
of  other  lives  exceeds  all  our  powers  of 
sympathy  and  insight.  If  we  feel  a  signifi- 
cance in  our  own  life  which  would  lead  us 
spontaneously  to  claim  its  perpetuity,  let 
us  be  at  least  tolerant  of  like  claims  made  by 
other  lives,  however  numerous,  however 
unideal  they  may  seem  to  us." 

These  clear,  strong  words  quite  dispose  of 
the  objection  to  the  belief  in  immortality 
on  the  ground  of  the  magnitude  of  the  claim 
it  involves.  The  difficulty  was  never  any- 
thing more  than  an  intellectual  bugaboo 
conjured  up  to  frighten  the  finite  mind  in 
quest  of  a  hope  to  feed  its  courage. 

There  may  be  times  when  this  question, 
"If  a  man  die,  shall  he  live  again?"  holds 


196      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

but  a  speculative  interest.  Youth,  health, 
work,  and  dear  companionship  make  this 
life  seem  adequate  for  all  our  needs.  But 
when  age  and  disease,  enforced  idleness  and 
loneliness  of  heart  become  our  lot,  those 
deeper  yearnings  have  the  fuller  chance  to 
be  heard. 

What  shall  we  be  when  all  the  years  of 
earthly  life  have  gone?  And  what  of  the 
dear  dead  who  have  gone  before?  Has  the 
Author  of  our  existence  found  nothing 
better  for  the  strength  and  beauty  of  their 
precious  lives  than  to  blot  them  out?  Are 
fidelity  and  purity  so  lightly  esteemed  that, 
as  generation  after  generation  brings  up  its 
share  of  moral  worth,  wrought  out  perchance 
in  blood  and  tears,  He  instantly  dooms  them 
to  extinction?  We  cannot  believe  it.  So 
long  as  reason  and  conscience  testify  to  the 
presence  of  a  Moral  Order,  august,  cosmic, 
eternal;  so  long  as  we  see  the  divine  glory 
shining  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ,  so  long 
we  find  it  impossible  to  cherish  the  negative 
belief.  Mind  and  heart  recoil;  they  leap 
in  joyous  assurance  to  the  glad  alternative  — 
"Because  he  lives,  we  shall  live  also," 
and  always. 

Faith  in  immortality  is  a  spiritual  achieve- 
ment rather  than  the  result  of  logic.  Reason 


IMMORTALITY  197 

may  clear  the  way,  but  the  more  abundant 
life  furnishes  the  power  which  carries  us 
ahead  in  noble  assurance.  As  you  come  to 
know  God  through  trust  and  obedience, 
you  will  say,  "  I  know  whom  I  have  believed, 
and  am  persuaded  that  he  is  able  to  keep 
that  which  I  have  committed  unto  him." 
As  you  enter  profoundly  into  fellowship  with 
Jesus  Christ  through  faith  and  service,  you 
will  say,  "I  am  persuaded  that  neither  death, 
nor  life,  nor  angels,  nor  principalities,  nor 
powers,  nor  things  present,  nor  things  to 
come,  nor  height,  nor  depth,  nor  any  other 
creature  shall  be  able  to  separate  us  from 
the  love  of  God."  As  you  come  to  feel  the 
essential  worth  of  your  own  life,  and  the 
significance  it  has  for  a  world  ruled  by 
moral  purpose,  you  will  say  inevitably, 
"Now  are  we  the  sons  of  God,  and  it  doth 
not  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be:  but  we 
know  that  when  he  shall  appear,  we  shall 
be  like  him,  for  we  shall  see  him  as  he  is." 

Jesus  did  not  persuade  men  of  immortality 
by  explaining  away  difficulties,  nor  by 
giving  them  details  as  to  the  future  state. 
He  maintained  a  noble  reserve,  which  those 
who  talk  glibly  of  what  is  in  store  for  us, 
would  do  well  to  imitate.  He  filled  men  with 
love  and  trust  in  the  heavenly  Father;  he 


198      THE    MAIN    POINTS 

indicated  that  the  whole  natural  order  was 
ruled  by  moral  purpose;  he  revealed  the 
abiding  worth  and  significance  of  the  human 
soul.  He  abolished  the  fear  of  death  by 
bringing  life  to  light.  And  in  that  joyous 
sense  of  life  abundant  we  think  of  death  as 
a  mark  in  the  road  over  which  the  full  tide 
of  life  eternal  will  bear  us  in  glad  and  unend- 
ing progress. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  FINAL  JUDGMENT 

THE  question  as  to  how  the  just  and  the 
unjust  will  fare  in  the  world  to  come, 
is  an  inquiry  serious  and  inevitable.  There 
are  three  main  views  embodying  the  conclu- 
sions to  which  reflecting  men  have  come, 
touching  the  final  result  of  the  moral 
processes  which  we  see  at  work. 

It  is  held  that  at  death  all  men  are  at  once 
divided  into  two  classes,  the  one  destined 
for  unspeakable  and  unending  bliss,  the 
other  for  terrible  and  endless  punishment. 
This  view  rests  mainly  for  its  scriptural 
support  upon  the  passage  in  Matthew  where 
men  are  separated  as  are  the  sheep  from 
the  goats,  the  righteous  entering  into  the 
rewards  of  life  eternal,  the  unrighteous 
suffering  the  rejection  and  penalty  prepared 
for  the  devil  and  his  angels.  The  sharp 
division  and  fixity  of  condition  pictured  in 
the  parable  of  the  rich  man  and  Lazarus, 
and  certain  passages  in  the  Book  of  Revela- 
tion, are  also  cited  in  support  of  this 
claim. 

199 


200      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

The  scriptural  warrants  for  such  a  view 
are  meager  and  inconclusive  in  the  face  of 
the  many  other  passages  which  make  against 
it.  Yet  this  doctrine  has  been  preached 
with  a  confidence  and  an  offensiveness  of 
detail  far  removed  from  the  dignified  reserve 
of  the  Scriptures  themselves. 

The  practical  difficulties  in  the  way  of 
holding  such  a  belief,  when  we  attempt  to 
fill  it  in  with  real  people,  are  so  great  that 
it  may  be  doubted  if  any  considerable 
number  of  the  more  thoughtful  members  of 
our  evangelical  churches  really  hold  it. 
They  may  give  formal  assent  to  creeds 
where  it  stands  by  implication  or  perhaps 
by  direct  statement;  they  may  not  utter 
any  formal  repudiation  of  it  as  an  abstract 
theory;  but  as  an  actual  program  for 
humanity,  as  a  conviction  to  be  carried  into 
the  home  and  applied  with  unsparing  honesty 
to  such  of  their  own  loved  ones  as  may  have 
died,  not  in  outrageous  wickedness  but,  it 
may  be,  in  an  unregenerate  state  according 
to  the  most  charitable  construction  of  evan- 
gelical standards,  how  many  of  them  are  ready 
to  affirm  it  as  an  article  of  faith? 

It  would  be  passing  strange  if  it  were  true. 
It  would  mean  that  while  variety  well-nigh 
endless  obtains  here,  monotony  obtains 


FINAL   JUDGMENT       201 

hereafter!  A  million  different  conditions 
for  men  here  and  as  many  different  degrees 
of  moral  fidelity  or  infidelity,  but  only  two 
conditions  there!  If  reply  is  made  that 
heaven  may  be  one  of  degrees  and  hell  also 
a  state  of  degrees,  the  conditions  graded 
according  to  gradations  of  character,  then 
the  lowest  stages  of  heaven  and  the  milder 
conditions  of  hell  appropriate  as  awards  for 
modes  of  life  of  almost  equal  worth  may  not 
be  more  than  a  step  removed.  A  more  ra- 
tional conception  of  the  future  state  would 
be  saved  by  this  shift,  but  the  old  doctrine  of 
heaven  and  hell,  with  a  great  gulf  between, 
would  be  gone. 

The  righteous  went  into  "life,"  the  wicked 
into  "punishment."  How  endlessly  varied 
are  "life"  and  "punishment,"  as  we  know 
them  here!  The  use  of  these  plain  terms 
might  indicate  as  many  heavens  and  as 
many  hells  as  there  are  varying  states  of 
character. 

The  moral  difficulty  of  separating  men 
into  just  two  classes  with  an  infinite  gulf 
forever  yawning  between  them  makes  such 
a  belief  well-nigh  impossible.  The  discrimi- 
nation could  not  be  made  according  to  the 
degree  of  modern  development.  We  may 
test  ships  by  fixed  standards,  and  if  they 


202      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

fail  to  make  so  many  knots  an  hour  reject 
them.  Men  cannot  be  accepted  or  rejected 
in  such  rough-and-ready  fashion.  The  degree 
of  moral  attainment  depends  on  environment, 
heredity,  and  education,  for  which  men  are 
not  always  responsible,  as  well  as  upon 
worthy  or  unworthy  choices.  The  poor, 
superstitious,  ignorant  Chinese,  living  with 
a  high  degree  of  fidelity  to  the  light  he  has, 
may  be  in  actual  moral  attainment  far 
below  an  intelligent  Christian;  but  the 
Christian  in  his  fortunate  surroundings,  if 
measured  by  the  degree  of  his  fidelity  to 
his  nobler  and  more  difficult  ideals,  might 
be  outclassed  by  the  Chinese. 

In  order  to  meet  this  difficulty  it  has  been 
suggested  that  men  will  be  judged  according 
to  their  faithfulness  to  the  light  they  had. 
This  has  a  show  of  justice,  but  such  a  sliding 
scale  would  produce  singular  results.  Men 
who  had  evinced  a  considerable  degree  of 
fidelity  to  the  glimmer  of  moral  truth  they 
had,  would  be  in  heaven;  and  men  whose 
lives  conformed  more  nearly  in  every  way 
to  the  precepts  of  Jesus,  but  who  perhaps  had 
not  been  quite  so  zealous  in  bringing  all 
their  conduct  into  harmony  with  those  high 
and  searching  requirements,  might  be  in 
hell.  In  that  event  hell  would  contain 


FINAL   JUDGMENT       203 

people  who  were  morally  better  than  some 
of  those  in  heaven. 

The  confusion  which  arises  when  we  try 
to  state  our  belief  regarding  these  two 
fixed  states  comes  not  alone  from  the  incom- 
pleteness of  our  knowledge  of  men's  hearts. 
It  would  seem  impossible  for  absolute  knowl- 
edge to  draw  a  line  of  demarcation  separating 
all  men  into  two  companies,  between  whom 
forever  after  an  infinite  difference  of  allot- 
ment should  stand.  Men  cannot  be  pro- 
nounced "guilty"  or  "not  guilty"  in  the 
ultimate  finding,  as  they  might  be  on  some 
specific  charge.  They  are  guilty  of  some 
things,  innocent  of  others.  And  Paul  says 
that  we  are  to  be  judged  "according  to  the 
deeds  done  in  the  body"  —  the  decision  is 
founded  upon  an  estimate  of  character  as 
illustrated  and  proved  by  conduct. 

The  claim  is  sometimes  made  —  appar- 
ently in  defiance  of  the  basis  of  judgment 
just  quoted,  and  in  rejection  of  that  of  Jesus, 
who  in  the  classical  passage  on  the  final 
judgment  pictured  the  awards  as  resting 
upon  men's  faithfulness  or  unfaithfulness  to 
the  demands  made  upon  them  for  humane 
service  —  that  we  are  not  judged  upon  our 
conduct,  but  upon  our  personal  acceptance 
or  rejection  of  Jesus  Christ  as  the  Saviour. 


204      THE   MAIN   POINTS 

But  what  is  meant  by  "accepting"  him? 
The  sincerity  of  a  man's  acceptance  of 
Christ  is  to  be  judged  by  his  effort  to  repro- 
duce the  spirit  of  Christ  in  his  own  life  — 
that  is  to  say,  by  his  conduct.  "By  their 
fruits  ye  shall  know  them."  "Not  every 
one  that  saith  unto  me,  Lord,  Lord,  shall 
enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven;  but  he 
that  doeth  the  will  of  my  Father  which  is  in 
heaven." 

The  whole  trend  of  the  New  Testament 
teaching  is  to  the  effect  that  men  are  to  be 
judged  by  their  deeds.  The  sheep  and  the 
goats  stood  respectively  for  the  people  who 
were  humane  and  for  those  who  were  selfish 
and  inhuman.  "Those  who  had  done  the 
works  of  love  out  of  a  free,  uncalculating 
heart"  were  accepted,  and  those  who  had 
shown  no  disposition  to  render  such  service 
were  rejected. 

The  wise  virgins  were  accepted  because 
they  had  done  their  duty,  and  the  foolish 
ones  were  excluded  because  they  had  care- 
lessly failed  to  discharge  their  social  obliga- 
tions. The  five- talent  man  was  rewarded 
because  he  used  his  powers  as  he  was  bidden, 
and  the  one-talent  man  was  cast  into  the 
outer  darkness  because  he  had  failed  to 
make  righteous  use  of  his  modest  ability. 


FINAL  JUDGMENT      205 

The  rich  man's  beliefs  or  unbeliefs  are  not 
referred  to  in  the  parable  of  Dives  and 
Lazarus  —  theological  belief,  except  as  we 
see  the  fruits  of  it  in  conduct,  is  never 
brought  into  any  scene  of  judgment  portrayed 
by  our  Lord  —  his  destiny  is  made  to  turn 
upon  his  conduct.  It  was  wrong  for  the 
rich  man  to  allow  a  poor  sick  fellow  to 
starve  at  his  gate;  and  for  that  inhumanity 
he  was  punished.  The  deeds  done  in  the 
body  determine  the  issue  in  the  great  assize. 
The  attempt  to  make  final  allotment  and 
establish  this  radical  difference  of  condition 
makes  an  unsatisfactory  showing  in  the 
region  of  abstract  theology.  When  we 
attempt  to  fill  it  in  with  concrete  lives, 
the  embarrassment  is  increased.  A  popular 
lecturer  was  accustomed,  a  generation  ago, 
to  use  this  illustration  with  telling  effect. 
A  robber  enters  a  bank  and  shoots  the 
cashier,  the  teller,  and  the  bookkeeper 
before  they  have  time  to  resist.  He  robs 
the  bank,  but  later  is  caught,  tried  for  his 
crime,  and  sentenced  to  be  hanged.  The 
men  in  the  bank  whom  he  killed  were  honest, 
worthy  men,  guarding  the  interests  of  their 
customers  with  fidelity.  They  were  good 
men  in  their  homes  and  useful  citizens,  but 
none  of  them  had  ever  made  a  profession  of 


206        THE  MAIN  POINTS 

religion;  none  of  them  could  be  called 
regenerate  according  to  evangelical  standards. 
Each  one  had  a  vague  purpose  of  coming 
some  time  into  more  vital  relations  with 
Jesus  Christ;  yet  he  had  postponed  it 
until  without  a  moment's  warning  he  was 
killed  at  his  post  and  went  to  his  eternal 
account. 

The  murderer  had  time,  after  he  was 
sentenced  and  before  his  execution,  to  repent, 
to  believe  on  the  Saviour,  and  to  accept  the 
offices  of  the  chaplain  who  gave  him  in 
due  form  the  absolution  and  blessing  of  the 
Church.  He  received  the  sacrament  and 
died  in  all  that  odor  of  sanctity  which  such 
experiences  can  confer. 

And  then  the  lecturer  would  say,  "You 
tell  me  that  this  murderer  swung  off  the 
gallows  into  everlasting  glory  and  looked 
over  the  safe  battlements  of  heaven  and 
saw  in  the  place  of  lament  and  pain  the 
three  men  he  had  suddenly  shot  down  in 
their  unregenerate  state?"  The  fallacy  is 
apparent,  but  it  held  enough  of  truth  to 
set  many  uninstructed  people  in  opposition 
to  what  they  supposed  was  the  religion  of 
Jesus  Christ.  It  indicates  some  of  the 
difficulties  involved  in  the  notion  of  a 
separation  at  death  of  all  men  into  the  two 


207 


states,  with  an  impassable  and  infinite  gulf 
forever  yawning  between  them. 

The  second  traditional  view  of  the  judg- 
ment is  that  of  universalism.  The  crude 
form  of  this  belief  current  a  century  ago, 
which  declared  that  men  are  sufficiently 
punished  for  their  sins  in  this  life  and  that 
when  they  die  they  all  enter  heaven  alike,  has 
been  abandoned.  The  modern  Universalist 
holds  that  all  men  reap  what  they  sow 
according  to  a  justice  which  allows  no  slips. 
All  wrong-doing  will  be  punished  here  and 
hereafter,  but  always  with  reference  to  the 
correction  of  the  wrong-doer.  Retribution 
works  in  the  interests  of  divine  grace,  and 
the  hard  experiences  it  brings  serve  to 
accomplish  what  gentler  treatment  did  not 
achieve.  Hell  is  not  a  place  of  endless, 
hopeless  doom,  but  a  reform-school.  The 
worm  "which  dieth  not"  gnaws  in  the 
interests  of  moral  recovery  and  the  flames 
which  are  not  quenched  burn  out  the  dross, 
leaving  the  life  pure  as  a  result  of  fiery 
discipline.  As  men  are  led  by  the  chastise- 
ment of  God  to  repent,  to  accept  his  mercy, 
and  to  form  new  purposes,  they  are  par- 
doned. At  last,  because  God  is  greater  than 
sinful  men,  because  where  sin  abounds 
grace  does  much  more  abound,  and  because 


208        THE  MAIN  POINTS 

his  persuasions  to  righteousness  are  inex- 
haustible and  therefore  destined  to  be  finally 
successful,  all  men  will  be  saved. 

This  view  derives  its  scriptural  warrant 
from  such  passages  as  the  parable  of  the 
sheep,  where  the  Good  Shepherd  is  repre- 
sented as  going  out  after  the  lost  sheep 
"until  he  finds  it."  Jesus  said,  "I,  if  I  be 
lifted  up  from  the  earth,  will  draw  all  men 
unto  me."  He  expressed  confident  hope 
as  to  the  complete  success  of  his  undertaking. 

The  expression  "everlasting"  or  rather 
"age-long"  punishment  is  understood  to 
mean  a  process  of  chastisement  which  as  a 
process  endures  throughout  the  whole  age 
or  dispensation  of  judgment;  but  it  is  not, 
for  any  individual  soul,  endless.  This  con- 
tention is  strengthened  by  the  fact  that  the 
word  there  translated  "punishment"  means 
literally  "pruning"  —  the  removing  of  the 
crooked  or  fruitless  branches  that  the 
tree  may  gain  its  best  estate.  The  fact 
that  Jesus  is  described  as  "the  Lamb  of  God, 
which  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world" 
is  urged  as  indicating  complete  success  — 
it  is  said  to  be  inapplicable  to  one  who 
should  fail  with  half  the  race. 

The  Epistles  furnish  many  passages  which 
are  quoted  by  the  adherents  of  this  larger 


FINAL   JUDGMENT       209 

hope.  "As  in  Adam  all  die,  so  in  Christ 
shall  all  be  made  alive"  —  the  effects  of 
redemption  to  be  as  universal  as  the  effects 
of  transgression.  "Christ  is  the  Saviour  of 
all  men,  especially  of  them  that  believe." 
There  will  come  a  time  when  "every  knee 
shall  bow  and  every  tongue  confess  that 
Jesus  is  Lord  of  things  in  heaven,  and  things 
in  earth,  and  things  under  the  earth": 
and  inasmuch  as  "no  man  can  say  that 
Jesus  is  Lord,  but  by  the  Holy  Ghost," 
this  indicates  a  redeemed  universe,  with  no 
outlying  portion  in  rebellion.  "It  pleased 
the  Father  that  in  him  should  all  fulness 
dwell;  and  having  made  peace  through  the 
blood  of  his  cross,  by  him  to  reconcile  all 
things  unto  himself;  by  him,  I  say,  whether 
they  be  things  in  earth,  or  things  in  heaven." 
Thus  a  universe  is  pictured  where  the  work 
of  restoration  is  complete. 

The  author  of  Revelation  predicts  a  time 
when  "every  creature  which  is  in  heaven, 
and  on  the  earth,  and  under  the  earth,  and 
such  as  are  in  the  sea,  and  all  that  are  in 
them,  shall  worship,  saying,  Blessing,  and 
honor,  and  glory,  and  power  be  unto  him 
that  sitteth  upon  the  throne,  and  unto  the 
Lamb  for  ever  and  ever."  The  whole 
creation  of  sentient  beings  shall  worship 


210       THE  MAIN  POINTS 

God    and    pay    homage    to    the    completed 
process  of  redemption. 

It  is  a  courageous  and  a  winsome  attitude. 
It  has  enlisted  the  sympathy  of  a  host  of 
noble  hearts.  The  man  who  can  believe 
that  this  Gospel  of  "the  larger  hope"  is 
well-founded  finds  unspeakable  satisfaction 
in  proclaiming  it.  It  has  been  set  to  music 
in  the  lines  of  great  poets. 

"Oh  yet  we  trust,  that  somehow  good 
Will  be  the  final  goal  of  ill. 

That  nothing  walks  with  aimless  feet, 
That  not  one  life  will  be  destroyed, 
Or  cast  as  rubbish  to  the  void, 

When  God  hath  made  the  pile  complete." 

If  I  were  a  root-and-branch  Calvinist,  I 
should  certainly  be  a  Universalist.  If  I 
held  that  God  elects,  chooses,  and  wills 
certain  men  to  be  saved,  and  does  save 
whomsoever  he  will,  I  should  certainly 
believe  that  he  would  finally  save  them  all. 

But  salvation  depends  on  human  choice. 
Salvation  means  the  attainment  of  holy 
character  which  can  result  only  where  men 
dedicate  themselves  to  the  pursuit  of  holiness. 
If  salvation  were  accomplished  by  simply 
putting  all  men  into  a  place  called  heaven, 
then  the  sheer  Almightiness  of  God  would 
suffice. 


FINAL   JUDGMENT       211 

Salvation  is  godly  character,  developed 
by  human  volition,  and  we  cannot  affirm 
confidently  that  all  men  in  this  world,  or  in 
any  world,  will  choose  it.  The  facts  around 
us  do  not  seem  to  warrant  the  high  claim. 
In  the  face  of  the  full  measure  of  divine 
entreaty,  men  wilfully  choose  unholiness. 
We  stand  amazed  at  the  awful  power  a 
man  has  to  say  to  the  Almighty,  "I  will 
not."  With  this  vast  and  persistent  refusal 
of  the  divine  purpose  before  their  eyes,  most 
men  find  no  valid  warrant  for  affirming  that 
all  men  will  finally  choose  holiness. 

The  Universalist  view  is  in  open  opposition 
to  certain  teachings  of  the  Master.  His 
tenderness  was  infinite  and  his  confidence 
in  the  ultimate  success  of  his  own  redemptive 
efforts  as  great  as  ours  dare  be,  yet  he 
uttered  the  most  solemn  words  to  be  found 
in  Scripture  touching  the  final  outcome  of 
evil  choices.  He  spoke  of  moral  failure 
which  was  beyond  remedy.  He  pictured 
the  results  of  it  in  his  references  to  fruitless 
trees  cut  down  and  cast  into  the  fire;  to 
chaff,  separated  from  the  wheat,  swept 
up,  and  burned.  The  day  of  opportunity 
for  the  fruitless  tree  and  for  the  chaff  was 
over. 

Unfaithful    men    were    cast    into    outer 


212        THE  MAIN  POINTS 

darkness  and  the  door  was  shut,  with  no 
mention  made  of  future  opening.  Men  who 
built  their  houses  on  the  sands  of  ungodliness 
saw  those  houses  thrown  down  by  the  forces 
sent  to  test  them.  They  saw  the  results 
of  their  efforts  swept  away  without  remedy. 
The  selfish  man  living  inhumanly  found 
himself  separated  from  the  objects  of  his 
desire  by  a  great  gulf  fixed.  The  Master 
of  moral  compassion  said  of  one  who  com- 
mitted grievous  wrong,  "It  had  been  good 
for  that  man  if  he  had  not  been  born." 
In  the  event  of  his  final  restoration  to 
holiness  and  to  a  consequent  eternity  of 
happiness,  this  would  not  be  true,  j 

In  the  face  of  these  declarations  of  Christ, 
attractive  and  winning  as  is  the  hope  of 
moral  success  for  every  soul  born  into  the 
world,  it  does  not  seem  to  me  that  it  has 
sufficient  warrant  to  enable  men  to  proclaim 
it  as  the  gospel  of  the  Son  of  God.  The 
vast  measure  of  failure  in  the  physical  world 
finds  a  counterpart  in  the  moral  failure  of 
which  the  Scriptures  speak  solemnly.  Jesus, 
with  all  his  optimism,  urged  men  to  strive 
as  those  who  would  enter  in  at  a  strait  gate, 
which  many  would  fail  to  find. 

The  third  traditional  view  is  that  of 
conditional  immortality,  or  the  annihilation 


FINAL   JUDGMENT       213 

of  the  unregenerate.  This  is  "the  aristo- 
cratic view  of  immortality."  It  holds  that 
men  are  naturally  mortal.  Immortality  is 
held  out  as  a  price  to  be  gained  by  spiritual 
effort.  Those  who  become  Christians  in 
this  world  inherit  eternal  life.  The  moral 
failures  are  blotted  out.  This  view  is  held 
by  the  Adventists,  by  a  few  other  small 
sects,  and  by  individual  Christians  here  and 
there  in  many  of  the  churches. 

The  adherents  of  this  view  cite  those 
passages  of  Scripture  which  indicate  that 
righteousness  will  at  last  be  universal,  with 
no  outlying  regions  of  sin  and  pain,  thus 
excluding  the  idea  of  persistent  wickedness 
and  of  unending  punishment.  They  also 
emphasize  those  passages  which  indicate 
that  death  will  be  the  penalty  for  evil- 
doing.  "The  wages  of  sin  is  death;  but 
the  gift  of  God  is  eternal  life  through  Jesus 
Christ  our  Lord."  "God  so  loved  the 
world,  that  he  gave  his  only  begotten  Son, 
that  whosoever  believeth  in  him  should  not 
perish,  but  have  everlasting  life."  "He  that 
hath  the  Son  hath  life;  and  he  that  hath  not 
the  Son  of  God  hath  not  life."  The  "second 
death"  is  regarded  as  final  extinction. 
The  fact  is  cited  that  the  "tares,"  the 
"chaff,"  the  "fruitless  branches,"  were 


214        THE  MAIN  POINTS 

"burned  up,"  indicating  extinction  of  being 
rather  than  eternal  torment  for  the  unregen- 
erate  whose  fate  was  thus  symbolized. 

This  view  is  further  supported  by  certain 
scientific  and  philosophical  considerations. 
It  is  indeed  the  doctrine  of  the  survival  of 
the  fittest  carried  into  the  moral  world  and 
dressed  in  ecclesiastical  phrase.  The  strong 
in  faith  and  righteousness  survive.  Those 
who  are  weak  in  these  moral  elements  go 
to  the  wall  and  perish. 

The  philosophical  claim  is  to  the  effect 
that  all  evil-doing  results  in  limitation  of 
being.  As  men  persist  in  wrong-doing, 
they  grow  small.  They  come  to  have  less 
and  less  significance  for  a  moral  universe. 
This  process  of  reduction  continues  until  the 
nature  becomes  infinitesimal,  without  rela- 
tions adequate  to  sustain  it  in  being.  It 
therefore  perishes.  "Loss  of  personal  exist- 
ence is  the  natural  end  of  a  life,  in  which  sin 
runs  its  full  course  and  brings  forth  its 
fruit;  a  man  sins  on  and  gradually  reduces 
himself,  by  the  disuse  and  extinguishment  of 
power  after  power,  to  nonentity."  This  doc- 
trine thus  introduces  something  of  the  com- 
petitive principle  as  a  spur  to  moral  endeavor. 
It  offers  eternal  life  as  a  privilege  to  be  gained 
by  those  who  make  the  adequate  effort. 


FINAL   JUDGMENT       215 

This  view  is  more  humane  than  the  first. 
In  a  world  where  moral  failure  is  so  common 
it  is  more  probable  than  the  second.  It  may 
be  held  as  an  interesting  theory.  It  cannot 
be  urged  dogmatically  as  the  one  doctrine 
taught  in  Scripture  touching  the  final  judg- 
ment. It  errs  in  using  Scripture  with  a 
literalness  which  is  misleading.  "Eternal 
life,  is  not,  according  to  the  prevailing  use 
of  the  phrase  in  the  New  Testament,  "mere 
continuance  of  being:  it  is  enriched  and 
elevated  being,  as  worthy  and  glorious  as 
it  is  endless."  The  word  "death"  is  by  no 
means  synonymous  with  extinction.  The 
father  spoke  of  the  prodigal  son  as  having 
been  "lost  and  dead,"  though  the  young  man 
had  been  in  conscious  existence  during  all 
that  period.  Men  are  "dead"  when  they 
are  living  "in  trespasses  and  sins." 

The  rough-and-ready  way  in  which  great 
numbers  of  our  fellow  beings  are  by  this 
view  handed  over  to  destruction,  because  they 
have  not  made  such  attainments  in  righteous- 
ness as  others  have  made,  shocks  the  moral 
nature.  This  belief  relegates  to  extinction 
all  the  heathen  who  have  not  received  eternal 
life  in  Christ,  who  indeed  never  had  an 
opportunity  to  receive  it.  Thus  from  Scrip- 
ture, from  moral  reason  and  from  the  claims 


216       THE  MAIN  POINTS 

of  Christian  humanity,  opposing  considera- 
tions arise  to  the  doctrine  of  the  annihilation 
of  the  un  regenerate. 

If  no  one  of  these  three  views  then  can  be 
held  dogmatically,  what  shall  we  say?  If 
Scripture,  honestly  interpreted  and  justly 
compared  part  with  part,  does  not  teach  any 
one  view  to  the  exclusion  of  all  the  rest;  if 
the  general  indications  of  all  the  facts  attain- 
able and  the  considerations  advanced  by 
moral  reason  do  not  indicate  one  certain 
outcome  of  the  moral  processes  at  work, 
where  shall  a  thoughtful  Christian  stand? 

It  would  seem  to  me  that  the  only  tenable 
position  is  this:  It  has  not  pleased  God  to 
reveal  anything  like  a  precise  program  of 
the  future  world.  Beyond  the  powerful 
sanctions  for  righteousness  and  the  solemn 
warnings  against  ungodliness  afforded  by 
our  belief  in  a  future  state  of  rewards  and 
punishments,  where  each  shall  receive  its 
appropriate  desert,  he  seems  to  have  felt 
that  for  his  immature  children  one  world  at 
a  time  was  enough.  The  attempts  to  bring 
all  the  passages  of  Scripture  bearing  upon 
the  final  outcome  into  line  with  either  of  the 
three  traditional  views,  fails.  Any  definite 
theory  about  the  final  issues  of  the  future 
world  is  compelled  to  support  itself  by  a 


FINAL   JUDGMENT       217 

partial  use  cf  Scripture.  It  draws  its  conclu- 
sions from  certain  selected  passages,  but 
fails  to  give  due  consideration  to  other 
passages  which  point  to  a  contrary  view. 
The  entire  silence  of  Paul,  the  greatest  of 
the  apostles,  respecting  the  method  or  the 
results  of  punishment  beyond  the  grave  is 
worthy  of  careful  consideration  by  all  his 
fellow  Christians. 

The  Bible  was  not  intended  to  furnish 
exact  information  as  to  what  God  will 
finally  do  with  evil  men,  or  with  those  whose 
characters  are  so  indeterminate  that  they 
have  never  been  competent  to  decide  the 
momentous  question  of  eternal  destiny.  The 
Bible  was  intended  to  make  known  to  us 
the  offer  of  his  grace  and  truth,  as  aids  in 
holy  living;  to  guide  us  in  the  way  of  right- 
eous activity;  to  give  the  stimulus  which 
comes  from  the  sense  of  those  over-brooding 
spiritual  realities.  With  these  aids  in  our 
possession  we  may  go  about  our  Christian 
activities  leaving  the  future  in  God's  great 
hands. 

When  we  are  asked  as  to  what  will  finally 
be  done  with  the  heathen  who  have  neither 
accepted  not  rejected  Christ,  because  they 
never  heard  of  him,  we  need  not  hesitate 
to  confess  our  ignorance.  Why  should  w*» 


218        THE  MAIN  POINTS 

know?  What  will  finally  be  done  with 
those  about  us  who  are  not  totally  or  irre- 
claimably  bad,  and  yet  who  live  and  die 
giving  no  sign  of  actual  repentance  and 
conversion?  How  should  we  know!  The 
field  of  inquiry  is  wide  and  attractive,  but 
we  shall  do  well  to  be  faithful  to  our  own 
ignorance.  The  cause  of  religion  is  never 
advanced  by  pretending  to  know  what  we 
do  not  know.  I  have  no  map  of  the  future 
to  hang  upon  the  wall.  I  need  none.  I 
prefer  to  hang  there  the  portrait  of  Jesus 
Christ.  It  is  "the  God  and  Father  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ"  with  whom  we  have  to  do 
here  and  hereafter.  We  may  be  confident  that 
He,  as  Judge  of  all  the  earth,  will  do  right. 
We  are  involved  in  difficulty  when  we 
undertake  to  go  beyond  a  few  simple  prin- 
ciples. "Surely  I  know  that  it  shall  be  well 
with  them  that  fear  God.  .  .  .  But  it  shall 
not  be  well  with  the  wicked."  "The  way  of 
the  transgressor  is  hard."  The  kind  hands  of 
the  Almighty  make  it  hard  for  our  warning. 
It  grows  harder  the  longer  men  travel  it. 
If,  at  any  time,  anywhere,  unrighteousness 
should  succeed  in  being  permanently  pros- 
perous, there  God  would  cease  to  be  moral 
ruler.  Retribution  must  continue  as  long 
as  sin  continues. 


FINAL  JUDGMENT      219 

The  final  outcome  lies  beyond  our  ken. 
The  "Judge  of  all  the  earth"  will  do  right. 
What  that  right  shall  finally  be  we  leave  to 
him.  When  the  returns  are  all  in  and  moral 
judgment  has  grown  sufficiently  mature  to 
see  things  as  they  are,  we  shall  see  that  it  is 
right.  With  confidence  in  the  moral  char- 
acter of  God,  with  certainty  touching  the 
present  and  unending  benefits  of  righteous- 
ness, and  with  the  awful  consequences  of 
wrong-doing  made  clear  beyond  a  perad- 
venture,  we  have  an  adequate  source  of 
motive. 

The  definite  programs  for  the  future 
world  have  done  harm.  The  credulous  have 
been  taught  many  things  about  the  future 
of  which  we  cannot  be  sure.  The  thoughtful 
have  learned  that  it  is  so.  And,  as  a  result 
of  this  discovery,  many  have  been  led  to  dis- 
trust even  that  part  of  the  message  which 
is  worthy  of  all  confidence.  We  have  thus 
suffered  a  loss  of  power  in  speaking  with 
authority  about  the  ascertained  spiritual 
realities. 

As  I  wrote  these  words,  I  turned  to 
a  volume  of  sermons.  They  were  not 
preached  by  some  obscure,  untrained  man 
on  the  frontier,  without  books  or  aids,  or 
scholarship  at  his  command.  They  were 


220        THE  MAIN  POINTS 

preached  in  the  city  of  London  to  a  large 
congregation  of  people,  by  one  who  stood 
among  the  great  preachers  of  his  genera- 
tion, as  judged  by  the  hearing  he  secured 
and  by  the  clear  evidences  of  his  usefulness. 
Here  are  the  words  of  Charles  Haddon 
Spurgeon!  "Thou  wilt  sleep  in  dust  a  little 
while.  When  thou  diest  thy  soul  will  be 
tormented  alone  —  that  will  be  a  hell  for 
it  —  but  at  the  day  of  judgment  thy  body 
will  join  thy  soul,  and  then  thou  wilt  have 
twin  hells;  body  and  soul  shall  be  together, 
each  brimful  of  pain,  thy  soul  sweating  in 
its  inmost  pores  drops  of  blood,  and  thy 
body  from  head  to  foot  suffused  with  agony; 
conscience,  judgment,  memory,  all  tortured; 
but  more,  thy  head  tormented  with  racking 
pains,  thine  eyes  starting  from  their  sockets 
with  sights  of  blood  and  woe,  thine  ears 
tormented  with  'sullen  moans  and  hollow 
groans  and  shrieks  of  tortured  ghosts'; 
thine  heart  beating  high  with  fever;  thy 
pulse  rattling  at  an  enormous  rate  in  agony; 
thy  limbs  crackling  like  the  martyrs  in  the 
fire,  and  yet  unburnt;  thyself  put  in  a  vessel 
of  hot  oil,  pained,  yet  coming  out  unde- 
stroyed;  all  thy  veins  becoming  a  road  for 
the  hot  feet  of  pain  to  travel  on;  every 
nerve  a  string  on  which  the  devil  shall  ever 


FINAL  JUDGMENT      221 

play  his  diabolical  tune  of  hell's  unutterable 
lament;  thy  soul  forever  and  ever  aching, 
and  thy  body  palpitating  in  unison  with  thy 
soul.  .  .  .  Many  of  you  will  go  away  and 
laugh  and  call  me,  as  I  remember  once 
being  called  before,  *  a  hell-fire  parson.' 
Well,  go;  but  you  will  see  the  hell-fire 
preacher  one  day  in  heaven,  perhaps,  and 
you  yourselves  will  be  cast  out;  and  looking 
down  thence  with  reproving  glance,  it  may 
be  that  I  shall  remind  you  that  you  heard  the 
Word  and  listened  not  to  it.  Ah,  men,  it 
is  a  light  thing  to  hear  it;  it  will  be  a  hard 
thing  to  bear  it.  You  listen  to  me  now 
unmoved;  it  will  be  harder  work  when 
death  gets  hold  of  you  and  you  lie  roasting 
in  the  fire."1 

This  from  one  of  the  most  celebrated 
preachers  of  our  time  in  all  the  English- 
speaking  world!  It  was  not  a  hasty,  hurried 
utterance  which  a  man  preaching  without 
manuscript  might  make  unguardedly.  He 
wrote  it  out  and  published  it  for  wide 
circulation  as  his  deliberate  conviction. 

The  gross  materialism  and  cruelty  of  the 
conception  offend,  but  the  dogmatic  assump- 
tion offends  us  even  more.  How  did  he 
know?  Where  did  he  learn  that  men  will  be 

1  Spurgeon's  Sermons,  Volume  II,  page  275. 


222       THE  MAIN  POINTS 

"roasted  in  literal  fire,"  plunged  now  and 
then  "into  vessels  of  hot  oil,"  their  nerves 
used  by  the  devil  as  fiddle-strings  upon 
which  to  play  his  fiendish  music?  Where 
did  he  discover  that  in  heaven  he  would  be 
permitted  to  stand,  in  a  strange  attitude 
for  a  man  of  Christian  compassion,  surely, 
on  the  battlements  of  heaven  and  look 
"with  reproving  glance,"  shaking  his  finger 
at  tormented  souls,  and  saying,  "I  told  you 
so?"  This  is  not  the  atmosphere  of  the 
New  Testament.  He  knew  none  of  those 
things.  The  picture  is  a  bit  of  crude 
mythology.  The  inhumanity  of  it  makes 
men  shudder,  but  the  raw,  dogmatic  assump- 
tion touching  the  destinies  of  those  men 
gathered  before  him,  would  drive  the 
thoughtful  into  unbelief. 

Without  pretending  to  know  the  final 
destiny  of  those  who  persist  in  evil,  we  know 
enough  to  make  us  realize  our  full  responsi- 
bility for  our  conduct.  "We  shall  all  be 
made  manifest  before  the  judgment  seat  of 
Christ."  The  judgment  day  will  be  a 
revelation  of  what  we  have  become  by  our 
own  acts  and  choices.  "The  seed  sown  here 
will  naturally  determine  the  fruit  to  be 
gathered  hereafter." 

The  absoluteness  of  moral  law;    the  fact 


FINAL   JUDGMENT       223 

that  men  must  reap  what  they  sow,  here 
and  hereafter;  the  necessity  of  personal 
righteousness  for  the  attainment  of  peace 
and  happiness;  the  awful  consequences  of 
persistent  disobedience  to  the  best  we  know; 
the  base  ingratitude  of  turning  one's  back 
upon  the  divine  mercy  —  these  ascertainable 
realities  in  the  moral  order  are  sufficient  to 
bring  out  the  seriousness  of  living,  and  to 
awaken  a  deep  sense  of  personal  account- 
ability to  a  Moral  Judge. 

It  may  be  that  the  positive,  hopeful 
side  of  Christianity  has  been  over-emphasized 
and  that  the  darker  things  of  warning  and 
judgment  have  been  neglected.  We  may 
look  too  much  on  the  bright  side.  My  own 
sympathies  have  been  with  the  men  whose 
message  reads,  "The  kingdom  of  heaven  is 
at  hand,"  rather  than  with  those  who  go 
about  saying,  "The  kingdom  of  hell  is  at 
hand." 

There  are  considerations  innumerable 
which  give  us  confidence.  If  wise  generals 
never  fight  unless  there  is  a  reasonable  pros- 
pect of  victory,  we  may  be  sure  God  would 
never  have  undertaken  this  fight  with  evil 
unless  there  was  a  good  prospect  of  success. 
He  will  subdue  this  world  to  himself.  He 
will  establish  righteousness.  He  will  enlist 


224        THE  MAIN  POINTS 

in  his  own  service  a  vast  army  of  faithful 
men  and  women  who  shall  win  a  victory 
glorious  enough  to  fill  earth  and  sky  with 
songs  of  praise.  He  will  see  of  the  travail 
of  his  soul  and  be  satisfied  — and  we  may 
rest  assured  that  what  satisfies  him  will 
satisfy  us. 

There  will  be  cowards  and  deserters 
refusing  to  march  under  his  banner  or  to 
wear  the  name  of  his  Son  —  of  these  the 
Scriptures  give  nothing  but  a  solemn  account! 
Misery  springs  out  of  wrong-doing  as  the 
plant  from  the  seed.  Retribution  follows 
upon  disobedience  naturally  and  therefore 
inevitably.  We  have  no  warrant  for  suppos- 
ing that  it  can  ever  be  otherwise  in  a  universe 
controlled  by  a  Moral  Being.  Therefore, 
punishment  will  last  as  long  as  sin  lasts, 
and  nothing  but  holiness  can  ever  see  the 
face  and  share  the  joy  of  the  Father. 

But  without  venturing  where  we  do  not 
know,  we  may,  through  our  faith  in  the 
integrity  of  God,  feel  sure  that  every  human 
being  will  have  the  fullest  opportunity  to 
attain  the  object  of  his  creation  which  the 
Almighty,  who  desires  that  end  above  all 
things,  can  give  him. 

We  may  be  assured  that  every  human 
being  will  receive  from  the  providential  order- 


FINAL   JUDGMENT       225 

ing  of  circumstances,  from  the  revelation  God 
has  made  and  will  make  of  himself,  and  from 
the  direct  persuasions  of  the  Spirit,  all  the 
impelling  influence  to  turn  him  to  holiness 
that  his  nature  can  bear  and  still  remain 
free  to  choose. 

We  may  be  sure  that  no  human  being  will 
be  given  over  to  perish  or  to  suffer  endless 
loss  so  long  as  God  can  see  any  possibility 
of  his  salvation. 

These  three  great  confidences,  not  original 
with  me,  but  urged  by  many  teachers  of 
religion  as  axioms  of  judgment  taken  from 
the  character  of  the  God  and  Father  of 
him  who  came  to  seek  and  to  save  that 
which  was  lost,  fill  us  with  courage.  They 
give  us  a  gospel  of  good  news  for  all  the 
children  of  men. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE   USE   OF   A   CREED 

THERE  are  light-hearted  and  light- 
headed people  who  count  it  all  joy 
to  pour  contempt  upon  creeds.  The 
moment  any  one  of  them  sees  the  word 
"doctrine"  or  "creed,"  he  feels  impelled  to 
give  it  a  kick.  This  is  a  stupid  performance. 
It  is  the  act  of  those  who  apparently  do  their 
religious  thinking  with  their  feet  rather  than 
with  their  heads.  We  all  have  our  creeds, 
simple  or  elaborate,  positive  or  negative. 
We  must  have  creeds,  unless  we  commit 
intellectual  suicide  and  stop  thinking. 

The  word  "creed"  comes  from  the  Latin 
"credo,"  "I  believe."  It  refers  to  convic- 
tions held  touching  matters  where  the  truth 
or  falsity  of  the  claims  advanced  cannot  be 
instantly  submitted  to  the  test  of  demon- 
stration, as  we  demonstrate  that  two  and  two 
make  four  or  that  a  straight  line  is  the 
shortest  distance  between  two  points.  The 
convictions  expressed  in  one's  creed  lie  in 
another  realm.  The  man  who  holds  them 
226 


USE   OF   A   CREED         227 

feels  that  they  are  warranted,  yet  he  may  not 
be  able  to  demonstrate  their  truth  and  thus 
coerce  the  intelligence  of  another  into 
accepting  them.  They  therefore  constitute 
his  "creed." 

The  fool  said  in  his  heart,  "There  is  no 
God"  —  that  was  his  creed.  He  did  not 
know  that  there  was  no  God,  because  any 
one  to  know  that  would  have  to  know  every- 
thing. If  there  remained  any  outlying 
section  of  the  universe  which  his  intelligence 
had  not  mastered,  God  might  still  be  there. 
That  statement  of  belief  seems  weak  and 
foolish,  but  it  is  no  less  a  creed. 

Thomas  H.  Huxley  used  much  time  and 
breath  and  ink  in  fighting  certain  theological 
creeds,  but  personally  he  was  one  of  the 
most  dogmatic  Englishmen  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  He  had  his  creed  and  he  fought  for 
it  as  stoutly  as  did  the  Westminster  divines 
for  the  statements  of  the  famous  "Confes- 
sion." The  agnostic  who  insists  that  we 
cannot  know  anything  about  God  or  prayer 
or  immortality  is  a  man  with  a  creed.  If  he 
is  a  thorough  going  agnostic  he  will  fight  to 
the  last  in  defense  of  his  disappointing  creed. 
The  moment  the  mind  moves  out  beyond 
the  things  of  sense  or  the  exact  demonstra- 
tions of  mathematics  or  the  inevitable  con- 


228        THE  MAIN  POINTS 

elusions  of  formal  logic,  it  begins  to  cherish 
convictions  of  some  sort,  positive  or  negative, 
inspiring  or  depressing.  The  convictions 
cherished  make  up  its  creeds.  The  whole 
habit  therefore  of  pouring  contempt  upon 
creeds  is  intellectual  folly. 

The  claim  is  made  that  "one  creed  is  as 
good  as  another,  if  only  it  be  sincerely  held." 
But  one  creed  is  as  good  as  another  only 
when  it  is  as  true  as  the  other;  only  when 
it  can  show  as  much  sound  reason  under  it 
and  as  much  moral  spiritual  fruitage  grow- 
ing out  of  it,  where  it  has  been  tested  by 
men  and  women  in  the  actual  business  of 
living!  The  creed  which  makes  the  best 
showing  for  itself  in  moral  reason  and  in 
spiritual  experience  is  the  only  one  accept- 
able to  a  serious,  discriminating  mind. 

"We  do  not  care  what  a  man  believes" — 
this  is  a  foolish  statement!  We  do  care 
whether  a  man  believes  truth  or  falsehood, 
whether  he  stands  on  facts  or  on  fancies! 
Every  sane  man  cares !  Intellectual  freedom 
does  not  mean  liberty  to  believe  any  or 
every  vagary.  It  means  the  fullest  oppor- 
tunity to  discover  the  truth.  It  is  folly 
for  a  man  to  build  his  life  on  beliefs  which 
are  soon  to  be  swept  away  like  chaff  by  the 
wind  of  knowledge.  It  is  folly  for  a  man  to 


USEOFACREED         229 

refuse  reasonable  beliefs,  which,  if  accepted, 
would  put  gunpowder  behind  his  aspiration, 
his  utterance,  his  action.  In  the  long  run 
the  truth  alone  proves  serviceable.  For  a 
season  the  vain  imaginations  of  some  flighty 
individual  may  work  apparent  results,  but 
by  the  test  of  years  it  will  be  found  that  only 
those  beliefs  which  are  grounded  in  reason 
and  match  the  system  of  things  as  we  find 
them,  produce  strength  and  peace  and  joy. 
What  people  believe  is  of  vital  importance. 

We  find  those  who  feel  that  when  they 
undertake  to  accept  any  religious  creed 
they  must,  in  some  measure,  ignore  the 
claims  of  reason.  They  think  that  religion 
is  a  matter  of  unreasoning  sentiment,  feeling, 
and  imagination.  They  would  agree  with 
the  statement  of  the  schoolboy  who  wrote, 
"Faith  is  that  faculty  by  which  we  believe 
what  we  know  is  not  so." 

This  was  not  the  attitude  of  Jesus.  The 
Master's  word  was,  "I  am  the  truth." 
His  promise  to  his  disciples  was,  "Ye  shall 
know  the  truth."  He  indicated  the  moral 
results  of  competent  knowledge,  "The  truth 
shall  make  you  free." 

When  he  uttered  the  two  great  command- 
ments on  which  hang  all  the  law  and  the 
prophets,  his  word  was,  "Thou  shalt  love 


230       THE  MAIN  POINTS 

the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,  and 
with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy  mind,  and 
with  all  thy  strength."  Lest  some  near- 
sighted individual  should  fancy  that  any 
set  of  faculties  was  omitted  from  the  sphere 
of  religious  influence,  he  repeated  four  times 
over  that  great  word  "all."  All  thy  heart, 
all  thy  soul,  all  thy  mind,  all  thy  strength! 
He  had  no  sympathy  with  the  notion  that 
religious  belief  would  not  bear  the  scrutiny 
of  intelligence.  He  commanded  men  to  use 
their  brains  in  the  discovery  of  that  truth 
which  was  to  set  them  free  from  all  that 
might  hurt  or  hinder  their  lives. 

We  find  those  who  think  that  the  less  we 
believe,  the  better.  They  look  into  the 
minister's  face  in  a  dyspeptic  mood  and  say, 
"How  much  must  we  believe  in  order  to  be 
Christians?  Must  we  believe  this?  Must 
we  believe  that?"  If  they  can  reduce  the 
affirmations  of  the  gospel  to  the  lowest 
terms,  they  seem  to  think  they  may  be  able 
to  accept  it. 

It  is  a  singular  attitude.  Men  do  not 
pursue  that  course  in  regard  to  other  inter- 
ests. We  cannot  imagine  a  man  saying, 
"How  much  must  I  eat  in  order  to  live? 
I  want  to  eat  the  very  least  amount  possible 
which  will  keep  me  alive."  Doctor  Tanner 


USE   OF   A   CREED        231 

managed  to  live  for  forty  days  on  water. 
He  did  not  recommend  it,  however,  as  a 
steady  diet.  The  question  is  not,  "What  is 
the  least  amount  that  I  can  exist  upon?" 
but  rather,  "How  much  may  I  eat  for  the 
highest  degree  of  health,  pleasure,  effective- 
ness?" In  religious  belief  there  are  souls 
keeping  along  on  the  thinnest  kind  of 
theological  gruel.  We  are  glad  they  are 
alive  —  we  can  but  wish  that  they  were 
better  fed!  They  would  not  look  so  lean 
and  sad  when  the  subject  of  religion  is 
mentioned,  if  they  ate  more. 

The  man  born  blind  was  conscious  of  a 
meager  equipment  when  he  began  his 
Christian  life.  He  did  not  know  whether 
Jesus  Christ  was  a  sinner  or  not.  He  was 
strong  and  clear  at  a  single  point  —  "One 
thing  I  know:  whereas  I  was  blind,  now  I 
see."  But  he  was  open-minded.  When  the 
Pharisees  cast  him  out  of  the  synagogue, 
Jesus  said  to  him,  "Dost  thou  believe  on  the 
Son  of  God?"  The  man  whose  eyes  had 
been  opened  did  not  know.  He  was  not 
ready  to  commit  himself  until  the  import  of 
such  a  belief  was  made  plain  to  him;  nor 
would  he  lightly  refuse  such  a  belief.  "Who 
is  he,  Lord?  ...  I  might  believe  on  him." 
Then  Jesus  revealed  himself  to  the  man 


232        THE  MAIN  POINTS 

whose  eyes  he  had  opened;  and  at  the  end  of 
their  conversation  the  man  said,  "Lord,  I 
believe."  This  is  the  wholesome  attitude. 
The  man  of  open  mind  wishes  to  accept  all 
the  inspiring  and  helpful  beliefs  which  a 
rational  man  may  accept. 

The  vital  question  is  not  how  much  must 
we  believe  but  how  much  may  we  reasonably 
believe.  We  do  not  wish  to  be  absurd  or 
superstitious  or  devotees  of  the  impossible, 
but  we  do  desire  the  fullest  possible  creed 
which  may  be  reasonably  accepted.  Life 
is  richer  and  sweeter  for  one  who  believes  in 
"God  the  Father"  than  for  one  with  the 
fool's  creed,  "There  is  no  God."  Life  is 
more  privileged  and  glorious  for  one  who 
believes  in  the  efficacy  of  prayer,  in  the 
Bible  as  containing  a  message  from  the 
Eternal,  and  in  immortality,  than  for  one 
who  limps  along  without  these  inspiring 
aids.  Without  in  any  wise  taking  leave  of 
our  senses  or  ignoring  the  claims  of  reason, 
we  ask,  "How  much  may  be  rationally 
believed  by  aspiring  souls?" 

Even  though  the  logical  faculties  may  not 
be  coerced  as  they  can  be  coerced  to  believe 
that  the  whole  is  greater  than  any  part, 
or  that  water  released  will  run  down  hill; 
even  though  the  conclusions  of  the  intellect 


USEOFACREED        233 

touching  some  of  the  claims  of  religion  may 
stop  short  of  that  degree  of  certitude  common 
to  mathematical  demonstration,  if  those 
claims  are  manifestly  for  our  health  and 
vigor,  our  inner  cheer  and  comfort,  it  is  the 
part  of  common  sense  to  accept  them,  pro- 
vided always  they  offer  nothing  impossible 
or  absurd. 

The  people  who  take  this  line  are  in  a 
much  better  way  than  those  who  stand 
forever  shivering  on  the  brink  of  actual 
faith,  fearing  lest  they  might  include  in 
their  confidence  some  possible  item  of  error. 
This  point  is  conclusively  argued  in  Pro- 
fessor James'  essay  on  "The  Will  to  Believe." 
"Better  go  without  faith  forever,"  these 
timid  and  fumbling  souls  seem  to  say, 
"than  to  admit  the  least  possiblity  of  error 
into  our  hope."  This  attitude  of  mind  is 
foolish  and  barren!  There  are  many  worse 
things  than  believing  too  much  that  is  good 
about  God  or  about  ourselves  or  about  our 
possible  destiny.  Believing  too  little  or 
believing  nothing  at  all  is  infinitely  worse  for 
the  interests  of  the  inner  life!  Inasmuch 
as  we  stop  short  of  complete  and  exact 
certitude  touching  so  many  things  in  this 
world  of  mystery,  the  attitude  of  the  man 
whose  eyes  had  been  opened,  "Who  is  he, 


234        THE  MAIN  POINTS 

Lord,  that  I  might  believe  on  him?"  is  in 
every  way  more  healthful  and  promising. 

We  find  warrant  for  those  main  beliefs  of 
Christian  faith  in  the  great  fact  that  life  is 
more  successfully  and  happily  lived  in  the 
atmosphere  of  reasonable  faith  than  in  any 
other  atmosphere  to  be  named.  The  atmos- 
phere of  Christian  faith  is  the  only  atmos- 
phere which  sustains  life  at  its  best  over 
broad  areas  and  for  long  periods.  A  man  can 
live  after  a  fashion  for  years  in  •  a  dark 
cellar,  but  the  color  and  vigor,  the  effective- 
ness and  joy  of  his  life  will  not  compare 
favorably  with  the  quality  of  life  possessed 
by  the  man  who  lives  in  a  sunny  upper 
room.  The  actual  results  justify  the  in- 
stinctive preference  men  feel  for  the  sunny 
room.  Men  and  women  can  live  and  many 
of  them  do  live  for  years  in  apartments 
unlighted  by  the  faith  and  hope  and  love 
of  the  gospel  of  the  Son  of  God,  but  the 
color  and  tone,  the  effectiveness  and  happi- 
ness of  their  lives,  as  compared  with  that 
of  people  similarly  constituted  who  have 
walked  in  the  light  of  Christian  faith, 
justify  the  preference  felt  for  the  way  of 
Christ. 

I  have  thus  briefly  indicated  in  this  little 
book  some  of  the  grounds  upon  which  "I 


USEOFACREED        235 

am  ready  always  to  give  to  every  man  that 
asketh  a  reason  for  the  hope  that  is  in  me." 
"Reasons,"  the  apostle  said,  not  compelling 
proofs  or  final  demonstrations!  He  knew 
that  all  the  greater  beliefs  of  the  race  shade 
off  into  mysteries  which  human  intelligence 
has  not  perfectly  mastered.  The  hypotheses 
held  in  regard  to  the  heat  of  the  sun,  the 
movements  of  the  planets,  the  power  of 
gravitation,  the  force  which  turns  the  mag- 
netic needle  always  to  the  north,  the  inter- 
relations of  mind  and  matter,  and  many 
other  familiar  phenomena  where  science 
finds  itself  unable  to  bring  in  a  final 
report,  offer  us  instead  what  seems  to  be  a 
reasonable  working  theory.  We  are  in  the 
presence  of  unsolved  mysteries  at  every 
one  of  these  points,  but  having  adjusted 
ourselves  to  the  part  we  know  and  holding 
working  hypotheses  touching  the  part  we 
do  not  know,  we  live  along. 

In  the  absence  of  proof  and  demonstra- 
tion touching  certain  claims  of  religion 
where  definite  conclusions  cannot  be  made 
compulsory,  we  choose  sides.  We  choose 
the  side  which  can  show  the  largest  amount  of 
reason  behind  it  and  the  largest  spiritual 
fruitage  resultant.  We  choose  between  be- 
lieving in  God  and  undertaking  to  explain 


236        THE  MAIN  POINTS 

things  without  him.  We  choose  between 
believing  in  prayer  and  undertaking  to 
explain  this  vast  accumulation  of  spiritual 
experience,  or  the  age-long,  world-wide  habit 
of  prayer,  without  faith  in  its  utility.  We 
choose  between  believing  in  the  future  life 
and  trying  to  make  out  for  ourselves  a  just 
and  rational  world-order  without  the  hope 
of  immortality.  And  when  we  take  that 
course  with  open  minds  and  honest  hearts, 
we  find  ourselves  able  to  give  a  reason  for 
the  hope  we  cherish. 

In  seeking  to  indicate  briefly  what  may 
well  be  the  creed  of  a  Christian,  it  may  not 
be  unfitting  to  quote  the  creed  of  the  church 
which  it  was  my  honor  and  privilege  to 
serve  as  pastor  nearly  fifteen  years.  This 
creed  was  adopted  by  the  First  Congrega- 
tional Church  in  Oakland,  California,  after 
careful  consideration  and  full  discussion, 
without  a  single  dissenting  vote.  It  repre- 
sents in  brief  compass  that  consensus  of 
opinion  to  which  a  large  congregation  of 
Christian  people  came  under  the  guidance 
of  the  Spirit  of  Truth,  who  is  the  Holy 
Spirit.  It  is  at  once  so  simple  and  so 
comprehensive  that  it  may  be  suggestive  to 
print  it  here: 

"We  believe  in  God  the  Father,  and  in 


USEOFACREED        237 

Jesus  Christ,  His  Son,  our  Lord  and  Saviour, 
and  in  the  Holy  Spirit." 

"We  believe  in  the  Bible  as  the  divine 
rule  of  faith  and  practice,  and  in  prayer, 
and  in  the  life  of  useful  service." 

"We  believe  in  the  Holy  Church  Universal, 
in  salvation  from  sin,  in  the  resurrection 
from  the  dead,  and  in  life  everlasting." 

"And  in  this  faith  we  here  and  now  declare 
our  purpose  to  live  the  Christian  life." 

It  does  not  enter  upon  the  necessary  task 
of  theological  definition,  but  it  suggests  the 
truly  vital  elements  in  Christian  faith.  It 
does  not  represent  all  that  the  people  of 
that  church  believe;  it  does  not  contain  all 
that  some  of  them  would  esteem  vital;  it 
does  not  state  all  the  truths  there  named  as 
some  among  them  would  prefer  to  have  them 
stated,  but  it  does  affirm  the  agreement  to 
which  they  all  readily  came  touching  what 
were  esteemed  "The  Main  Points." 

We  believe  in  God.  We  believe  that  his 
character  and  disposition  toward  us,  as 
well  as  his  purpose  for  our  future,  are  best 
indicated  by  the  term  "Father."  "To  us, 
there  is  but  one  God,  the  Father,"  and  all 
our  religious  thinking  is  adjusted  to  that 
fundamental  claim. 

We  believe   in  Jesus  Christ  his  Son  —  a 


238         THE  MAIN  POINTS 

Sonship  altogether  unique  in  its  perfection  — 
our  Lord  and  Saviour.  He  is  our  Lord  in 
that  he  is  the  final  standard  by  which 
all  lives  are  to  be  judged.  He  is  the  eternal 
Lord  of  the  race  in  that  we  owe  to  him 
our  ultimate  allegiance.  And  in  the  word 
"Saviour"  we  register  our  full  confidence  in 
his  power  of  redemption,  of  moral  recovery, 
of  spiritual  renewal.  Theories  might  vary 
as  to  the  method  by  which  that  redemption 
is  accomplished,  but  all  agree  that  he  is 
the  Saviour  of  every  life  committed  unto 
him. 

We  believe  in  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  personal 
presence  of  the  Divine  resident  in  every 
heart  where  he  is  not  excluded  by  a  sinful 
will,  the  informing  and  guiding  Presence 
within  every  religious  mind  leading  it  into 
all  the  truth,  the  hope  of  the  race  through 
his  "Continuous  Leadership"  finding  ex- 
pression in  the  truest  and  holiest  aspirations 
of  men.  We  believe  in  God  the  Father, 
and  in  Jesus  Christ,  his  Son  our  Lord  and 
Saviour,  and  in  the  Holy  Spirit. 

We  believe  in  the  Bible  as  the  divine  rule 
of  faith  and  practice.  We  leave  to  literary 
scholarship  the  determination  of  all  questions 
as  to  date,  authorship,  and  the  composition 
of  these  sacred  writings.  We  do  not  affirm 


USEOFACREED        239 

inerrancy  or  equal  authority  for  all  the 
statements  contained  in  this  literature  of 
sixty-six  books.  We  affirm  that  any  man 
with  pure  heart  and  honest  mind  may  find 
herein  a  rule  of  faith  and  a  guide  for  conduct, 
which  will  be  to  him  nothing  less  than 
divine. 

We  believe  in  prayer  as  the  normal, 
constant  and  fruitful  means  of  fellowship 
between  the  heavenly  Father  and  his  earthly 
children. 

We  believe  in  the  life  of  useful  service, 
for  this  life  of  fellowship  with  the  Father 
finds  its  natural  and  inevitable  expression 
in  doing  good. 

We  believe  in  the  Holy  Church  Universal, 
a  Church  vaster  and  truer  than  the  Congre- 
gational Church,  or  the  Methodist  Church, 
or  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  or  any  other 
similar  body.  It  includes  all  that  is  genuine 
in  each  one  of  them.  It  is  that  Church 
to  which  all  those  who  own  and  follow  the 
sway  of  the  spirit  that  was  in  Christ,  belong. 
We  believe  in  that  Church,  and  in  our 
attitude  toward  all  Christian  bodies  we  en- 
deavor to  express  that  faith. 

We  believe  in  salvation  from  sin.  Through 
repentance  and  faith  in  divine  grace,  men 
are  saved  from  all  that  hinders  their  growth 


240         THE  MAIN  POINTS 

into  the  likeness  and  image  of  the  Son  of 
God. 

We  believe  in  the  resurrection  from  the 
dead,  and  in  life  everlasting.  As  to  the 
final  allotments  of  destiny  in  the  world  to 
come,  we  do  not  find  that  Scripture,  or 
reason,  or  experience  points  inevitably  to  one 
theory  to  the  exclusion  of  all  others.  We  do 
not,  therefore,  dogmatize  upon  that  point. 

In  the  church  referred  to  there  are  members 
who  believe  that  after  death  all  souls  are 
assigned  at  once  either  to  a  state  of  unspeak- 
able and  unending  bliss,  or  to  a  state  of 
unending  pain  and  torment;  others  believe 
that  all  unregenerate  souls  are  annihilated, 
that  only  those  who  are  "in  Christ"  attain 
immortality;  others  believe  that,  at  last, 
every  soul  will  be  brought,  by  penalty  it  may 
be,  severe  but  disciplinary,  to  holiness  and 
thus  to  happiness.  The  liberty  of  inter- 
pretation is  freely  granted  to  each  one  in 
these  matters  where  no  one  claim  can  show 
such  evidence  for  its  validity  as  to  make  the 
other  claims  impossible.  But  they  all  agree 
that  "whatsoever  a  man  soweth  that  shall 
he  also  reap,"  and  that  when  the  accounts 
are  finally  made  up,  it  will  be  seen  that  the 
Judge  of  all  the  earth  has  done  right.  In 
this  common  faith,  here  briefly  outlined, 


USEOFACREED         241 

they  stand  together  declaring  their  common 
purpose  to  live  as  Christians. 

Are  there  not  hundreds  of  hesitating 
people  who  are  not  members  of  any  church, 
who  have  not  as  yet  made  any  public  pro- 
fession of  their  faith,  who  could,  if  they  but 
consulted  that  which  is  deepest  and  best 
within  their  hearts,  stand  up  and  utter 
together  these  words  of  faith  and  hope  and 
love?  The  intellect  might  not  be  coerced 
by  proof  and  demonstration,  but  the  yearning 
heart,  the  aspiring  mind,  and  the  undis- 
couraged  will  would  stand  ready  to  claim 
at  least  this  much  of  Christian  truth  as 
food  for  the  inner  life! 

A  Christian  faith  grounded  in  reason, 
vitalized  by  spiritual  experience  and  made 
practical  by  being  related  at  every  point  to 
ordinary  duty,  is  the  choicest,  dearest 
possession  any  one  can  have  for  the  life 
that  now  is;  and  it  furnishes  the  only 
satisfying  preparation  for  the  life  which  is 
to  come. 


NOV  151990 

DATE  DUE 


CAYLORD 


PRINTED  IN  U  •  A 


A     001  015458     1 


